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Kite Tale
by Dan Klarmann, son

In March of 1966, Joe went through a kite-flying phase. To my 5 year old eyes, the simple red paper diamond kite, as tall as I was, was a thing of magic.
Pop took me to the park several times to get that thing aloft. The first time, it had only the anemic tail that came with the kit. We couldn’t get it to stay up more than for a few minutes. The next time, a short tail of knotted sheets helped, but not enough.
The next time, we had a tail that was three times as long as the kite. Anyway, it went up. But handling the kite from a ball of string was hard to do.
So, for the next time, pop wound the string onto an old, wooden clothesline frame: A weathered wooden square with a pair of turned handles sticking out of 2 opposite corners, much like a hysteresis trace on an oscilloscope.
Our next time we had the perfect wind. I held up the kite, pop started to run, and up the kite went. He let it out, and let it out. I tried to hold it, but was afraid that it would just carry me away! So I watched and chatted as he kept letting out the string. Finally, it was all the way up to the end; probably 100 feet.
What now? He found a stick, and tied the string to the stick, and managed to persuade me to hold on to it. Then he reached into his pocket, and pulled out… another ball of string! He quickly wound the string on to the clothesline frame. I held on to the kite with fear, and watched with fascination as the ball of string danced on the grass and shrunk as he rapidly rolled it onto the frame. Finally, he spliced the new string on to the old, and let the kite up even further.
I remember one teenager come up, and watch for a minute, and then state with awe, "I’ve never seen a kite go so high!"
It took forever to bring that thing back down. Also, the mountain had been climbed. I don’t remember going to the park to fly a kite again until my brother was old enough, and plastic kites were available.
Morals: Never assume that there is only one ball of string. A tool can usually be successfully used in ways the designer didn’t intend. Improvisation leads to greater heights.