The Monster in the Attic

In 1948 I was 4 years old. The house we lived in at that time was an “L” shaped frame house. One half of the top part of this house was used by my older brother George and me to sleep in. There was just one bed and the rest of the room was used for storage. The other half of this attic did not have a floor to walk on.

The floor consisted of only the ceiling joists set two feet apart. The room at the bottom had the ceiling ply board nailed to them. Therefore one had to walk only on these 2x6 joists in order to move around. Therefore we kids were not allowed in that part of the attic because we might slip off the floor joists and crash through the ceiling. This part of the room also was used for storage.

One of the items stored in this space was “the monster.” What monster could this be? Well, it was a monster kite.

You see when my grandfather did something he would do it in a big way. I guess he got this idea for a giant kite from Czechoslovakia, his homeland. The kite itself looked like a giant snow cone. It had a rounded front with a six inch pointed stick in front of it. Whenever the kite came crashing down it would stick into the ground and not hurt the butcher paper covering it. This kite was about five feet long and three feet wide. He painted a clown face on it with water colors.

Now comes the tail. The tail was about 30 feet long. It consisted of a heavy cotton string and pages from a Sears & Roebuck catalog tied every foot apart to it in a bow tie shape. On Sundays when all the aunts and uncles visited together, we’d take this monster down from the attic and attempt to fly it.

First of all, there had to be a pretty stiff wind blowing. Next, it took two adults to hold on to the heavy cotton string pulling this kite. Then it took another adult to hold the kite above ground. As for that 30 foot tail, that’s where we kids took part in holding it above ground.At the command we all would run against the wind and eventually got that monster to lift up into the air.

Oh what a sight! If there was a lot of wind it took the two adults all they had to hold on to that string. I guess over the years that kite finally deteriorated and was discarded but those great memories are still embedded in my mind.

After all, who now a days can say they got all the kin folks together just to go fly a kite!