Since I spoke about juggling and boomerangs, I thought I would mention kites to complete the trifecta of toys that guided my early years on the planet.
The Spring days of March and April bring not just showers but wind. I can remember building our kites from these assemblies of lightweight sticks and paper, and fighting with my brothers over who had the “best” one. Then it was out into the sun and wind where we would run to get the dad-blamed things off the ground, and then using a series of tugs and pulls gradually feed the string out until the kite obtained incredible heights. I remember once we got a kite to stay up all the way until the end of the string, making it little more than a red dot against the blue sky. They let me hold it then, and I could feel the power in the wind and childish joy at being part of such a distant and miraculous thing.
Years later, in Hawaii, a friend of mine was into sports kites, the kind that use two lines to control the kite and make it do tricks and loops. These are great fun and and he let me handle the two control lines. Easy to use but hard to master. The pull against my arms and hands brought me back to those very early days out in the fields of my youth; a kind of wind-memory.
The kite is also a European bird of prey, sometimes called an “inferior hawk”, a name which makes any self-respecting kite flounce from the room in indignation. Inferior indeed! The word kite comes to us from the old English word cyta, which is likely an imitation of the sound a kite makes, still smarting over the “inferior” hawk meme.
Finally it is possible to kite someone, meaning knowingly write a bad check. No connection to the wind or the birds as far as we know.
whoisfenton 