It was fun for 5 minutes. Then it crashed on the ground and broke.

My baby brother loved flying in the air, hooked to one.
Until he got snatched out of the sky by a big ass buzzard.
Try hiding that one from your parents.

I loved it.

I did not enjoy flying kites. First, they mostly crashed and broke, or the string got tangled, but not before giving me a serious string burn on my hand. For the time they were actually in the air, I got dizzy from looking up, and my arms, neck, and knees got sore. I always joked I had 80 year old knees when I was a teen.
I did enjoy the kite exhibitions on the beach in San Diego, which I could watch from my rented condo balcony.

I got a prize for flying a kite the longest and the highest. You literally couldnt even see the kite any more it was so far away. I don’t remember if it was during church function, or Girl Scouts or what.

Every few yearsI get the urge to make a kite, and I like the challenge of a classic diamond kite built from stuff lying around the house. The ingredients are sticks, newspaper, string, glue, and maybe rags for a tail.

The last time was when I had to entertain an 8 year old for an afternoon. There’s a hill here next to Lake Michigan that gets you above the trees and into the lakefront wind. We got our kite all the way out to the end of the string, sat on the spool and had lunch.

That’s fun for me, making it yourself, and getting this thing that’s clunky in your hands to soar on its own with just a little technique and a good choice of venue.

When I was a kid.

It was great fun. My dad used to take my sister and I kite flying. We would run to help the kite take off (kids have energy to burn) and it would fly high. Time with my dad, being outdooors in lovely weather, and in an open green field. What’s not to like.

Just an hour ago a friend of mine dropped by who goes kite flying every week while he’s in town. A few different groups get together here during the week. I always mean to go, but haven’t yet.

Stunt kites are fun.

I can never get that motherfucker to fly. It’s always a disappointment.

I have nice one I picked up at an estate sale a while back, can’t wait for the beach trip this year to try it out. I have not played with one since I was a kid.

I do it every once n a while. I did it often when I was a kid.
One time my brother and I had one going so high and far out it we needed a second ball of string. After enjoying it for a while we both got bored and decided rather than reel all the string back in we’d try an experiment: What would happen if we taped an Estes rocket engine to a straw, slipped the string through the straw and ignited the engine with some underwater cannon fuse – something every kid in the neighborhood had.
While my brother held the end of the string I slid the rocket up the string as high as I could and lit the fuse. The engine sat there for a few seconds and then, Whoosh! It took off up the string like a surface to air missile! It spiraled up into the sky leaving a trial of smoke along the string until the thrust charge burned out and the 5 second delay charge ignited. The kite suddenly quivered violently and began to tumble out of the sky, no doubt due to a broken main spar.
The engine was now flying free, out of control, and the ejection charge hadn’t fired yet!
We didn’t want to stick around in case it caused a problem so we let go of the string and ran.