Sub-Xtreme
By Daniel Brockman

It was a bluesky sunshine day in San Francisco, chilly and breezy. I was glad to be outside and crying about it. I wasn't exactly overwhelmed by emotion, but the wind kept sneaking into my eyes and drawing a tear down one cheek or the other.

After visiting the Coffee Roastery on Fillmore and Union to get a charge and dry my eyes, I headed on down to the Marina Green to interview some kite flyers.

Right off, I spotted a man who clearly knew what he was about. John was the technical expert working with two knee-high VIPs in keeping aloft their conventional ragtailed kite.

Q: Are these your assistants?

John: These are my grandkids.

Q: You fly kites often?

John: No, I just started it with them during the last couple of months.

VIP: It's really high. It's really high.

John: It's really high, yes.

Q: Did you fly kites when you were a kid?

A: I did, a lot, in Detroit.

Q: Did you participate in competitions?

A: No, but it was a big deal in our neighborhood.

Q: Where did you get this kite?

A: This one's from Target. I got a bigger one in the car, but we're using this simple one for these guys. Uh-oh, we gotta get this one now.

While one of the VIPs sang an unrecognizable melody, the kite spiraled down and crashed.

Q: How does that feel?

VIP: Fine!

I strolled on down the green and came to a fellow named Ken flying a red and yellow kite that looked like an airplane. It had long multicolor streamers as a tail, tied off the airplane's tail. A little girl nearby flew a triangular tail-less kite.

Q: Where'd you get the kite?

Ken: You can get these things at Cost Plus for about 15 bucks. Looks like an airplane. I was impressed with how easy these things are to get flying. In the old days, you'd have to run a long distance to get the wind to catch it. These things, you just toss it in the air, and it takes off by itself.

A Winnie-the-Pooh kite approached perilously close to Ken's line, but it didn't seem to bother him.

Ken: You can hardly make it yourself for the price. It's kind of an acrobatic kite. You can slack off on the string and it kind of dives and falls, but you can recover before it gets close to the ground. But that doesn't matter. I'm just glad to get out here on a nice day like this with my daughter. She has a simpler kite.

Winnie-the-Pooh collided with Ken's string then hit the ground.

Q: You get out here and fly kites often?

Ken: I came out here about two weeks ago, and I guess that was the first time in ten or fifteen years.

Q: You live in the city?

Ken: Sure do. Richmond district. I'm a dentist.

A regatta of small sailboats made a turn around a buoy just offshore, as a bulk cargo vessel hurried past Alcatraz in the distance. I wiped a tear. It was a real nice day.

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