Benjamin Franklin, We Salute You

Actress Lauren Bacall once said, “Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly,” and nothing prompts flights of fancy like the sight of a soaring kite. To fly a kite is to shake hands with the wind. Kites are great unifiers, cutting across specious social boundaries with a flick of their whimsical tails. From a kite’s point of view, all God’s children have strings. We got philosophical with some ground crew members at Redondo Beach at a July gathering sponsored by the Sunshine Kite Co.

Slavka and Jan Rehacek, Buena Park (biplane kite, $20)

How do you resemble your kite?

Jan: I’m a pilot. It goes with the territory.

How high is high?

Slavka: Everything above my head.

Jan: I don’t have a limit.

Kite-flying: an art or a science, and why?

Slavka: Both. It has beautiful aerodynamics, and it’s a free spirit in the sky.

How high can you fly in your mind?

Jan: Depends on if you’re drunk, sober or stoned.

Where do kites go when they die?

Slavka: They stay in my mind like old pets.

Tommy and Cristina Cardenas, daughters Belinda and Sarah, San Bernardino

(Winnie the Pooh kite, $15)

How do you resemble your kite?

Christina: I don’t want to state the obvious, but we’re chubby like Pooh.

How high is high?

Tommy: 150 feet.

Christina: When the string runs out.

Kite-flying: an art or a science, and why?

Christina: An art, because it’s just fun.

Tommy: A science, because you need the right weather.

How high can you fly in your mind?

Tommy: Depends on your goal.

We all want to get high up, but it’s a struggle.

Where do kites go when they die?

Christina: To kite heaven, which is full of trees so you can point and say, “That’s my kite.”

Dia Prioleau, Los Angeles (bug kite, $4)

How do you resemble your kite?

Happy and playful.

How high is high?

Very, very, very high.

Kite-flying: an art or a science, and why?

An art, because my kite has art on it.

How high can you fly in your mind?

All the way to the clouds. Where do kites go when they die?

To kite heaven, where it’s very colorful and people are friendly.

Len Zak, with granddaughter Hannah Perry, Torrance and Escondido (delta kite, $23, F111 kite, $30)

How do you resemble your kite?

Hannah: The pilot in the windsock has braces, too.

Len: It has long trailers, like my beard.

How high is high?

Hannah: Over my head.

Len: As high as I can jump.

Kite-flying: an art or a science, and why?

Hannah: A science, because it takes science to get it in the air.

Len: An art. I work with string and color and the wind in the sky.

How high can you fly in your mind?

Hannah: To space.

Len: Throughout the universe. I also jump out of airplanes.

Where do kites go when they die?

Hannah: To a kite graveyard that looks like a junkyard.

Len: To the Forever Wind, where they fly and dream and sleep.