It’s a bird, a butterfly, a Superman kite
Superman was flying high over Hermann Park on Sunday, but the string that tethered him to earth was caught in a tree.
Fortunately, Kris Runyon has been flying kites long enough to know what to do. He found a long pole and, within seconds, had expertly extracted his kite’s string from the oak tree’s highest branches.
“I’m not a kite flier, I’ll tell you right now,” said his wife, Misty, as the plastic superhero floated overhead. But the couple packed a lunch and brought a crew of kids and friends to the Hermann Park Conservancy Kite Festival, which filled the park with families, food trucks, music and more.
Not to mention kites. Butterflies and rainbows, parrots and dragons, skeletons and American flags dotted a sometimes cloudy sky — hundreds dancing and diving in the wind.
The first kite festival, in 2014, was supposed to be a one-time event — one of several celebrations to mark the park’s centennial. But it got such a positive response, they’ve brought it back every spring, said Julia McGowen, the conservancy’s marketing and communication manager.
And it has grown every year, she said. On Sunday, the Hermann Park Conservancy expected 10,000 visitors before the end of the day.
As “Moves Like Jagger” blasted from speakers nearby, Andrew Mullen and his daughter Lillian, 6, tried to get the hang of kiteflying.
Their white plastic kites — festival freebies from the HEB tent — would hover 8 or 10 feet off the ground, then crash into the grass every time.
“It’s been a struggle,” Mullen said, laughing. “I’ve never really flown a kite before.”
They weren’t the only first-timers. Plenty of families were buying their first kites, taking them out of the package and puzzling over what to do next.
Daniel and Barbara Blake tried to help their 9-year-old son, Evan, get a shark kite off the ground.
“Come on, wind!” Daniel Blake yelled as the shark took a nosedive.
“Throw it up there again!” his wife called out. “I think you get it up really good, and then you release the string a little at a time.”
But Barbara Blake wasn’t positive about that notion.
“Actually, we’ve never flown a kite before,” she said. “We don’t know a thing.”
Suddenly, the shark lifted into the air and gently rode a gust of wind. As it hovered overhead for one glorious moment, she scrambled for her phone: “I’ve got to get a picture of it in the sky, or else nobody will believe it.”
By afternoon, the park grew more crowded, and kites inevitably twisted together overhead. A Spongebob Squarepants kite languished in a treetop, hopelessly twisted in leafy limbs. And then there were the kites that got away — like the Runyons’ Superman kite almost did.
“We were over there,” said Misty Runyon, pointing to the far side of the festival. When the kite caught wind and pulled out of their son’s grip, she came running after it. “This tree saved me from running any further.”
On the small hill that rises over Miller Outdoor Theatre, Smiley Walker relaxed in a lawn chair. His black-and-gold pirate kite soared far above most of the others.
All around him, kids and adults chased after kites that thudded to the ground with every shift in the wind. Walker just let some more string unroll from his industrialsize spool, guiding it with hands that wore gloves to prevent rope burn.
“A lot of people panic when their kite starts taking a nosedive,” Walker said. “This is the way to break the fall: You have to release your line, and eventually it’ll level off.” When Walker was growing up in the Third Ward, he and his dad would build paper kites and fly them together. Now he owns three or four dozen high-quality kites — “I’ve really lost count” — and flies them at Hermann Park all the time.
“This is my hobby,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for years and years.” One Sunday a year, he said, he has plenty of company.