February 8, 2019 (Friday)
Today is National Kite Flying Day.
Perhaps the Great Depression caused people to seek entertainment that didn’t cost much, yet offered a degree of excitement and enjoyment. That may explain the popularity of kites among kids my age during the Depression days of the 1930’s.
Last year on this special day I repeated a 2016 blog about kites. It warms my heart whenever I read it because it describes a day of my childhood when my father made a kite for me from newspaper pages. *
When I think of a kite and link that thought with American history, I come up with the name of Benjamin Franklin.
On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm and collected a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite was struck by lightning, thus demonstrating the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments. He coined a number of terms used today, including battery, conductor and electrician. He also invented the lightning rod, used to protect buildings and ships.
The word, “kite,” is borrowed from Ornithology. It is the name of a bird of prey. I was with Dale Pogue one day at Lake Texana and he called my attention to an astounding fact: all the birds had disappeared into the branches of the trees and not one bird was singing. He then pointed out to me the Kite that was patroling the area from above, high in the sky.
White-tailed Kite
* Click here to review last year’s blog on this special day.