Kitty Hawk Kites, with the help of some great old friends in the kite-flying world, turned the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills into a wonderland of all things kites this past Saturday and Sunday for the 33rd Annual Wright Kite Festival. It was, I think, my favorite Outer Banks event so far. My responsibilities at the event revolved around keeping our twelve-foot delta kites in the air, and when the wind was right and the kites needed no help from me, I had a chance sit back and observe all that’s “Wright” with the world.
There’s just something about a kite in the hands that takes people back — back to a simpler time when getting that kite to fly was the most pressing issue you’d face in the course of a day. If you haven’t had the good fortune of coming to a Kitty Hawk Kites-sponsored event here on the Outer Banks, we do a lot of kite-making for kids. The kites are paper and pretty simple in design. Our faithful (and very patient) events staff members cut and tie the kites and then attach a string, and off the kids go to explore this new and wonderful world of kiting.
The younger kids don’t quite understand the finer points of flying, and once the kite gets airborne, they’re so excited to see it fly that they drop the string, and bye-bye kite. Nine times out of ten, they don’t catch on in time to catch the kite, and off it goes. Enter adoring parent, who, in their heroic haste, darts across the field in a (vain) attempt to recover the wayward flyer. Rarely is the recovery successful, but I guess learning to hold on to the things that bring joy in life is a valuable lesson for kids to learn.
But the most entertaining scene for me was one that repeated itself over and over again all weekend long: bonafide adults, and even a few, ahem, senior citizens, flying these little paper kites with childlike enthusiasm and a grin that could have accommodated the eating of a banana sideways. I’m not waxing sentimental in my recounting here; if I saw this scenario once, I saw it a thousand times. Normal, responsible, mature, otherwise completely functional adults time-warped to their childhood simply by holding the string of a little paper kite. We think that’s a sign that there’s plenty “Wright” with the world.
Add to the kite-flying frenzy “O.L.O.” the 130-foot over-large octopus and “Mel” the life-sized blue whale to the sky, and what you’ve got is Outer Banks kiting euphoria.
We think Orville and Wilbur would be proud to see the hallowed ground on which they once explored flight being used as a place to celebrate all that’s “Wright” with the world.
Special thanks to our good friends Terry and Janice Murray, Jeff and Joyce King, Dennis Hawley, Emily and Laura Rose, Jeff Burka, Chris Schultz from HQ Kites for putting on an amazing show and bringing with them an excitement for kites and flight that made the whole weekend one to remember.
