Looking for someone to be a friend? Go fly a kite

Every time the kid tossed his kite into the air, it'd fly back in his face. Sometimes he'd get lucky, though, and it'd only slam into the ground then somersault to his ankles.

Though laughable in a Charlie Brown sort of fashion, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. It's not because I was a nice kid, either. I wholeheartedly believed even at 10 that sometimes the best way to grow is by making a mistake; there's no harm in scraping your knee if you learn something from it.

But the kid was taking it on both knees and both elbows, over and over. Having flown kites by myself for some time, I understood what he was going through.

• • •

At 7 a.m., precisely, I'd lay my kite out. There only were a few short minutes before the school bus arrived, so I rushed through a face washing and bowl of Captain Crunch each spring morning, just so my time could be maximized nine hours later - at 4 p.m. - when the day's studies were done and there was just me, the brilliant blue skies and a good breeze.

Not much time remained until dinner; after that, darkness fell. And there was the struggle of getting the kite aloft in the first place.

But once the kite rose in the air, all the trouble was worth it. I'd imagine myself a paraglider, soaring like a bird across the wide earth, the whole horizon before me, riding currents and thermals, the wind my road.

Checking the line, inspecting for tears, ensuring the sticks were securely attached - each morning it put me in the mood for several hours of good, solid daydreaming.

• • •

Tossing a kite into the air and hoping the wind catches it usually leads to disaster.

The trick is to lay the kite lines on the ground. Then at waist level in front of you, hold the line handles parallel to one another. The lines then have to be pulled taut and the kite pushed upward. Jerk the handles back, and the kite rises. Return your hands to the starting position and use quick tugs to help the kite ascend. A smile is guaranteed.

Now just try doing that by yourself.

• • •

But I did, over and over. Usually my father was busy in the machinery shed or with the livestock. My only sibling was six years younger, and he didn't grasp the intricacies of launching a kite. Being on a farm, the nearest neighbor boy near my age lived three miles away.

So it was me alone.

I devised several elaborate schemes. One was to place the kite on two stacked hay bales so when pulling the lines taut the wind would take it. Usually a stick caught on the twine.

Or the kite might be positioned in front of a fan. Plugging in the extension cord while holding the lines taut proved fairly difficult.

A running start also was tried: Push the kite into the air and run from it. Sometimes out on the fresh-tilled cornfield you could outpace the breeze, and the kite would catch an air stream.

Ultimately, though, the real challenge was not to stomp on your kite in frustration when none of those methods worked.

• • •

A lot of kite-flyers are loners, not at heart but by circumstance. One such man was Iowan Samuel Cody. Born in 1867, he soon became the best horseman, roper and marksman around. When no one believed someone from Iowa could posses such skills, he told people he was from Texas.

This created problems whenever he met a Texan. They could hear right through his accent. He soon took to kite flying.

Inventing his own special model, he tried selling it to the British military. A train of them, he said, could lift an observer in a wicker basket, giving a commander the advantage on the battlefield.

The British didn't believe him. But they were impressed with his marksmanship and offered him a job training the troops how to shoot.

He turned down the offer and proceeded to fly across the English Channel in a 13-foot boat drawn by one of his kites. That got their attention. A long and mutually beneficial relationship followed.

In fact, a famous Cody war kite recently was sold at Sotheby's.

• • •

One of the neat things about kites is how they bring people together. In Iowa, Burlington, Mason City, Sac City and Grinnell all hold kite flying festivals or competitions. On the Internet, kite enthusiasts exchange information about the best places to fly kites when they travel to various spots about the globe.

So what on the surface appears to be a solitary activity actually isn't. Making your kite loop and dive may not require another person, but like a jazz soloist improvising, it sounds better when others play along and an audience listens raptly.

Is it any surprise then that jazz greats like Bix Beiderbecke, Glenn Miller and Al Jarreau either hail from or spent formative years in Iowa? An old kite flyer like Samuel Cody would get it.

• • •

Unfortunately, the kid didn't.

So I walked over to him, just said "hi." He whispered "hi" back.

"Hand me your kite," I said.

Perhaps because the kid was a couple of years younger, he did. I set it on the ground, and his eyes got big. Maybe he thought I was going to stomp on it.

"Hold the handles in front of your waist," I said.

As he did, I pulled the lines taut and pushed the kite upward. "Jerk the handles back!" I said, and suddenly the kite was aloft, this yellow diamond gliding across the blue sky.

We looked at each other and smiled.