Each year that Tears of Joy — our former local puppet theater group — produced The International Children’s Festival, I ran one of the hands-on tents as a Clark County Parks employee. One year my theme was kites.
Appearing at the festival would be Japanese kite master Eiji Ohashi, who has traveled his country learning about kite making, published kite patterns and directions in many books, and brought his kites all around the world. We corresponded before the festival regarding supplies — deciding on details such as pre-cut special paper and bamboo sticks for the cross pieces. We discussed how we were going to move so many children through building their kites within our time constraints.
Then Peter Epperson, who ran the festival, asked for my help in a pre-festival promotion involving Ohashi. Epperson showed me newspaper pictures of Ohashi ,who strung little kites together with a change in color every 10th kite and flew them in huge arches in different countries. Would I facilitate this same thing while some reporters flew in a helicopter over the arches? I guessed I would. So the kite master and I planned. He hadn’t much to do, having done it all before. I had to find a site.
Epperson wanted to do it at the Vancouver Army Barracks. I called Portland International Airport and found out the regulations for flying things like kites around planes. The regulations prohibit kites above 500 feet for five miles around airports — and not in any clouds, period. The airport wanted the kites out at Frenchman’s Bar. It’s a good space, but not where the public would really see the effort. But I had to worry about the regulations. I couldn’t get the county (and myself) in trouble.
We finally settled on the big open meadow on the south side of Clark College. I got a permit. But I couldn’t get enough volunteers to help. I dreaded the approaching date.
Ohashi and his wife arrived. We loaded boxes of connected kites into the county’s van and headed for the site. There was absolutely no wind. Flags all hung forlornly.
Secretly, it was a great relief on my part. I didn’t see how we could possibly fly kites, so maybe Ohashi wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t enough volunteers. I made some protestations regarding the lack of wind, but the kite master said nothing.
We unloaded the boxes. The kites were unpacked and laid out in four lines on the ground. Ohashi’s wife walked out to the end of one line and lifted up the first little kite. It began to wiggle! Mind you, there was still absolutely no wind. More kites began to float up in the air as she slowly fed the line out while holding onto its end. My jaw dropped. As more and more kites ascended, people stopped their cars on McLoughlin Boulevard and came running over the campus meadow asking if they could help.
Why, sure you can! We soon had four lines of kites flying. Still negligible wind, but I’d been concerned about hitting our height limit, so I was happy. When the kites began to dip, people began running around to keep them up.
Then, from out of the administration building, I heard my name. The Federal Aviation Administration was calling from Seattle. That was a sobering message in itself. How had they found me? I ran to the building. Pilots at PDX had reported some “things” in the air!
I reminded the FAA I had a permit. I said, I’m sure the kites are flying under the height limit (and hoped it was so). Then I was off the hook.
I happily returned to the meadow to continue keeping the kites flying in our no-wind zone.
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