Sharing your childhood with your children

Jasmin wanted to fly a kite the other day. Instead of going out and buy one from the shop I spent a little bit of time with her to make a real kite. As a child I used to make my own toy and I thought it would be good to show jasmin little bit of my childhood.:)

It is pretty straight forward really The pictures tell the story. Picture 2 is a roller which is very handy for releasing and retrieving the string quickly.

We went to park for a test flight. It just took off and it went higher and higher. We had some much fun together.:)

The trouble is if I show Jasmin all of my tricks then I will have nothing left to impress Emily.:o

Wongo,

They must think You to be the best dad, Well done.

These times are the ones they remember, and so will you.

Kites! I love kites. I used to go down to the beach in autumn and there was always an off-shore breeze. My mate and I made kites from sticks and garbage bags but they had two lines so you could do stunts. We used to dogfight and do this trick where you wrap your lines around the other guy's lines. You have to count the turns, and then you can reverse and undo the twist. Great fun :D:D

You have given me an idea, Scott. Thanks ;)

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Originally Posted by silentC

We used to dogfight and do this trick where you wrap your lines around the other guy's lines.

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Yes I used to hate those bastards. :D You know in Hong Kong they can buy string with glass powder (something like that). The purpose of that is to cut other people’s line off. That was real nasty.:mad:

In my day, we had no glass powder string. You got shot down and five seconds later you took to the sky again. Work with me here, mate ;)

…I lost many many kites of course.:(

I'm sorry to hear that. I think this runs very deep in your psyche, Scott. Tell us more about it. How did it make you feel?

I grew up in the bush with one tiny li'l paddock out the back of the house.

I reckon I became an expert at making kites out of nothing... you know the kite-eating tree in the Peanuts (Charlie Brown) cartoon? I was in the middle of thousands of the mongrels. On a clear day, you could see the broken corpses of my birds scattered randomly throughout the treetops for acres. [sigh]

Then I took up model planes, those things with glow-plug driven woodchippers bolted to the front, and spent quite some time planning my vengeance. Only to discover that the only thing that had really changed was the cost of the corpses littering those damned treetops. :o

'Twas fun though. Wonder why I ever stopped? :confused: (And now you know the real reason I became a woody. Revenge! :p)

If you had taken her out to the park last weekend, you could have saved a lot of kite building, just have tied a rope around her waist an dhse could have been her own kite :cool: :D

Next you have to build her a Hargrave-style square body box kite and a triangular body box kite with wings :p

Kites for me were absolute proof that there was such a thing as Murphy's Law. No sooner had I finished attaching the last newspaper bow to the tail than the wind which not 5 mins before, was knocking down large trees and un-roofing houses, would stop immediately.:(

I remember about 15 years ago my kids got in the car & passed me a tape & said "Here Dad, stick that in the player." :confused:
It was an Ugly Kid Joe tape & they thought they were going to shock me out of my socks. :rolleyes:
I turned it up NICE & LOUD & yelled over the top of it that they were about 18 years too late 'cos that was the sort of stuff I had listened to at school. :D

2nd hijack, ever made boomerangs for/with the kids & gone to the park & hung a few in the trees?

Quick & dirty, bit of 3 ply, jigsaw & a disk or belt sander.
Freehand draw a boomerang on the ply, cut it out with the jigsaw, then sand a chamfer on the bottom edge on one side only of one arm/leg/wing/blade & the opposite side bottom edge of the other arm/leg/wing/blade.
Now head for the paddock, hold it with you thumb & index finger like an upside down L with the top arm/leg/wing/blade pointing away from you & throw it.

You can muck around for hours with the profile but it isn't worth it 'cos you are bound to hang it in a tree or on somebody's roof anyway. :p

PS. Don't forget to watch where it goes & DUCK! :D

We used to make these boomerang-like things from paddlepop sticks. The brilliant thing about them was they would shatter into exactly 4 pieces when they hit a solid object :D

Scott,
great kite. Seeing the pic takes me back about 37 years ago to when I was in primary school in one of the world's windiest places. I would make kites that looked like the one you made. Bamboo, brown paper, glue and lots of light wieght material for the tail and of course lots of string. During school time I would always look thru the window just before home time to check the wind availability. I was NEVER disappointed as Port Elizabeth in South Africa had all the wind you ever needed for kite flying. I loved those carefree days of my life.:)
Regards
Les

Scott,
Thanks for re awakening long forgotten memories. With the pressures of work and life these days, the simple pleasures have long since been neglected. I'm goin to make myself a kite this weekend. I've gown up & grown old so I reckon that I'm alloowed to be a big kid again.:eek::D
Regards,
Barry

Cliff,
To continue the hijack - there used to be a place at one of the crater lakes on the Atherton Tableland - Barrine, I think it was, I think Eacham had the water ski-ing , anyway they used to sell those plywood boomerangs for a few bob - not very expensive because I could afford them out of my pocket money- and they were pretty good.
My grandfather had a cabinet making business in Mareeba so getting scraps of plywood was a no-brainer - copied the pattern and made heaps of them - good memories - taught my kids to throw them and even catch a few when they (mostly) came back.

Ian

We always had great fun flying kites in New Zealand. Our house backed on to Trentham School so we had no problems in getting on to the oval.

We tried to fly them in Australia but it just wasn't the same. Some great memories though:) Thanks Wongo.

Skew :D :D :D

cheers
Wendy

When I was a kid you could always tell when it was the 2nd week of school holidays - the kites were out. Frames made from pine split from fruit boxes, covered in brown paper, tail from old stockings. Great fun kite-fighting.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

When I was a kid you could always tell when it was the 2nd week of school holidays - the kites were out. Frames made from pine split from fruit boxes, covered in brown paper, tail from old stockings. Great fun kite-fighting.

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It took a week to build the kites??:D
Les

If he was anything like me, it took a week to pick runs in Mum's stockings so she'd throw 'em out. :D I could've done it quicker but being caught & stuck indoors for the rest of the week as punishment was rather self-defeating. :rolleyes:

Scot and Jasmine... thanks for the memories mate and little hoonmatess! :cool:

Kites are banned here have been since me an Aaron and the twins built 4 of the biggest meanest bestest ubloodybeaut kites EVER!! and promptly destroyed every arial in the district!! :eek: well I did have this penchant for making them with thin ali and sharpening the frames :rolleyes: I mean its no fun without challenges now is it?! And what better challenge than to see how many arials you can cut with a kite!! :D

seriously the end came when Yaz and Mels kites soared outta control into the OPEN front french doors of the house next door and promptly ripped through the old dears china doll collection :eek: poor kids didnt know what hit them when she came hurtling out the doors with the kites in her hands rainin all sorts of terror and mayhem on their small young noggins :rolleyes: no sence of humor or fun that ol duck I tell yer!

Anyway... I just wanted to say you can share as much of your own childhood with your nippers cause you will NEVER run out of them!! see its the differences that make your own childhood so much more fun and interesting... till they reach 15 or so then its "ooh there goes dad again on an on an on about when I was a nipper we did this and we did this yammer yammer yammer" Man thats a sad day that one :( So enjoy it Scot share as much as you can cause even though she will get to that age she will ALWAYS remember the fun times when dad took an interest in showing her his childhood

Yaz and Mel our eldest (twins) have since gaining the brilliant age of 24 have finally come back to thinking dad is just the greatest thing since sliced bread and actually surprise of surprises does know something!! And thats a good day!! :cool: presently Ive got 3 who have now come round to believing or almost believing Im actually real and did have a childhood some time back just after prehistoric man Ive got a few who disbelive every word that I utter and a couple who listen to my yarns with the thrall of something so alien so different to their little lives that its just "AMAZIN DAD" so Im in a pretty good place... just as you are mate :cool: