Let's Go Fly A Kite

Kites of all shapes and sizes danced in the skies over the Sunday, as about 50 people—most of them families with kids, but a few professional flyers—dealt with less than ideal winds at the library’s kite fly.

Beneath a white tent outside the library, moms, dads and children gathered to decorate kites provided by the library while on a baseball field nearby professional flyers from Chicagokite.com tried to hoist colorful stunt kites, “sleds” and a huge white ghost kite.

“The wind is iffy,” said Mike Hall, as he tried to launch a 9-by-12-foot black power sled, a kite designed for serious lifting. “It's been up and down.”

Tejas Mehrotra of Wheeling, his wife, Noopur, daughter, Aarnna and son, Paran had less of a problem launching their smaller white kite.

Tejas said he flew simple plastic kites in his native country.

“We did a lot of kite flying at festivals in India,” he said.

Those kites were more simple—usually made of plastic—than some at the library kite fly, he said.

“I don’t have much experience with those.”

Once their kite went airborn, Aarnna held the lines, eyes glued to the shape dancing in the skies.

Buffalo Grove resident John Joseph helped his 5-year-old son, Samuel, launch a colorful kite shaped like a biplane while his wife, Mary, looked on.

John said they tried kite flying in their backyard without much success.

“[Samuel] loves it,” Joseph said. “I remember doing it with my father. Now, I’m doing it with my son.”

While Hall’s black power sled probably was the largest kite, the most dramatic was the 11-foot white flowing ghost kite that Ed Brunt of Chicago tried to launch.

The weak, sporadic breezes didn’t offer much help.

“If I can get some of the wind, it looks pretty in the air,” he said, pulling on the lines as the kite lurched upward.

The kite was tethered to the ground with a metal stake; Brunt wore gloves to protect his hands.

After a few minutes and lots of  pulling on those lines, the kite lifted off the ground.

“This is one of those hobbies where you make your investment and wait on the wind,” he said.