As free as the wind blows
The sounds at the South Side Soccer Complex on Sunday were a sure sign of spring.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Whoop-whoop-whoop. Bzzzzzz. Thwack!
No, honey-makers weren’t gathering to watch the flight of bumblebees. About 250 kite enthusiasts were whipping their colorful creations through the air – and occasionally crashing into one another in the sky.
“Sorry about that, dear,” Jo Ann Cox called out to her husband, Bill Cox, after her stunt kite had smacked into his.
The kite festival has been held, under different sponsorship and at different locations, for the last 25 years, said Ken Cage, who owns Colors on the Wind kite shop with his wife, Becky Cage, and is a member of the Lilac City Wind Chasers.
The event almost didn’t take flight this year, though, when the city of Spokane told the kite club it couldn’t cover the liability insurance, Ken Cage said. Fast-moving kites can seriously hurt spectators, and a kite that hits power lines can be a deadly weapon. The club didn’t have the $865 to buy the insurance coverage, so it canceled the festival in February, Cage said.
Two days later, employees of radio station Spirit 101.9, not knowing of the annual event or that it had been called off, walked into the Cages’ store with an idea: They wanted to hold a family-friendly kite festival this spring.
“It was like an answer to a prayer,” Cage said. The station sponsored the event with the club and broadcast from the park on Sunday.
Cage said a second prayer also was answered: Despite a soggy forecast, rain stayed away. The kites also benefited from a strong wind, although some participants said it whipped around the field haphazardly.
“The trees create turbulence,” Bill Cox said, nodding toward some evergreens south of the field. He said kite enthusiasts love flying on beaches because the breeze coming off the ocean usually is “clean and steady.”
Members of the Lilac City Wind Chasers often trek to the coast for kite-flying competitions. Bob Murphy recalled hoisting 250 kites – all connected to the same 1,200-foot-long string – at Pacific Beach near Aberdeen, Wash., one year. Murphy was about to reel the line in when the string snapped, sending every single kite into the sunset.
“The last time I saw them they were heading to the ocean,” he said, while maneuvering a black ethereal-looking kite he called “the ghost” Sunday.
Murphy, Cox and other club members make their own kites either by following patterns in books or their own imaginations. Other kite fliers Sunday had less lofty aspirations.
Collin Skipper, 10, flew a $3 kite that was no bigger than a piece of notebook paper.
“I have a bigger kite, but you have to be running for it to work,” the Spokane resident said.
Two-year-old twins John and Joshua Buob, of Edwall, were content just to poke their heads through the pockets of a rainbow-colored kite.
Although kite enthusiasts called their hobby peaceful and relaxing, one spectator, a Pomeranian-Schnauzer mix named Cujo, seemed downright stressed out. The tiny dog barked incessantly until his best friend, Rocky, arrived.
Linnea Cubley, 5, had her sisters, Kelly-anne, 7, and Arianna, 3, close by to keep her company. With their mom, Jennifer Cubley, the girls flew a butterfly kite and snacked on carrot sticks. The family rode the bus to the festival from their home on the lower South Hill, where there usually isn’t enough wind to get kites in the air.
They watched as a Spokane Transit Authority bus drove north past the field.
“I guess we’ll have to wait another hour (before heading home),” Jennifer Cubley told the girls.
Nobody looked disappointed.