The Kite And The Brown Pelican

I held the 500 foot reel of string while my nine-year-old son Matthew restrained the tugging kite. At my signal, Matthew released the kite and it leapt out of his hands. Matthew and I took turns letting the kite fly higher and higher until almost no string was left on the reel.


I bought the kite on my family’s first visit to North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the early 1990s, and I have flown it on each return trip. This was a perfect day to fly a kite. The wind coming in off the ocean was steady; there were a few high clouds. The air was warm and the sand was not yet hot.

Scanning the skyline I saw that the pelicans were flying parallel to the shoreline, as usual. Unusually though,