I will be surprised to find that in childhood history, any Teck who has never been flying a kite has experienced, albeit indirectly, the exhilarating feeling of flying in space at the mercy of the prevailing wind.

On the day back on Elm Street, when we finished our World Series on the narrow concrete court—always between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers—our thoughts turned to playing big on Dickie’s porch. Rich man and flying a kite.

To be clear, none of us owns a real Monopoly game, but cardboard boxes, slats of dry-cleaned shirts wiped by our father, bottle caps, and notebook notes allow us to make equally effective games. Kite is a different challenge.

Don't get me wrong. You can buy an exquisite superhero embossed kite and a large rope ball for 25 cents at the Five and Ten stores. However, this requires finding and returning to the grocery store 13 soda (soda) bottles, each worth 2 cents, which is harder to find than four-leaf clover during the "kite season". So, if we can make Monopoly games out of cardboard, of course we should be able to make a "simple" kite out of household items. How hard is this?

Dickie, Anna and I-this is a team project-assembled the necessities for making a kite: any long and thin wood (such as curtain slats), a lot of rope (such as yarn), large sheets of paper (such as newspaper) ) And tail things (such as one of my dad’s favorite ties).

Through the use of screws, jackknife, tape, glue and rope, we agreed that we finally had a reasonable copy of the kite, with the paper covering and tail removed. Using the thick flour and water paste we made, we spread it on the rope around the kite frame, and then lay it flat on a newspaper. To be safe, we also folded the hanging newspapers, glued them, and tied my dad's tie to the end of the kite.

Only a few hours before the release time, we discussed and decided on a two-person operation and release strategy. . . on the street.

While waiting for the paste to dry, we knotted all the ropes we collected together, rolled them on a piece of wood, and then tied the loose end to the main body of the kite in some way. With the perfect autumn breeze blowing, it's time to launch and explore heaven with our homemade paper airplane.

We could almost hear the drums, because Anna grabbed a reel of string, and I lifted the kite high and waited for Dickie's "Ready! Let go! Go!" This will start the launch.

On the go! "Signal, Anna took off like a horse race, I let go of the kite.

This may be a beautiful Saturday morning on Elm Street. There are no cars in sight because we looked at our kite, which was covered with news from the day before, fell to the ground like a shot ball, and then was dragged until Anna stopped running.

We quietly cleaned up the mess-Dad's tie was ruined-and then spent a few minutes talking about why the kite didn't fly. Then, we ran to Dickie's porch without discouragement, played a game of Monopoly, and enjoyed the rest of Saturday together.

Gene Gallelli served as the vice principal of Dare County School for eight years. He received a doctorate in education from East Carolina University, where he taught and instructed students to become school administrators.

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