Sempre Fly!
Apr. 2nd, 2006 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivecats
One of the hallmarks of a truly good friendship is being able to see each other again for the first time in years and years and being able to pick up right where you left off. It's as if the interviening years simply weren't there, or that you've stepped into a wormhole that brought you right back with the other person just a day or so after you last saw them.
Within just a few minutes of seeing Chuck, Jaime and Michael on Saturday I said, "I can't believe I ever lost track of you guys."
Chuck, the kite flier seen above, was the owner and proprietor of The Kite Site, the Georgetown kite establishment that he ran for over ten years. He was the person who gave me my first job and brought me into a world that changed my life -- for the better, I might add.
For more pictures of people you probably don't know (unless you were there),
Jaime was an unpaid congressional intern by day and a Kite Siteer by night. Heart of gold, able to pick out a congressman in the store at 20 paces and with exceptional taste in music, Jaime was someone I managed to stay in touch with for a while in my post-Kite Site days. His mother hosted the only S(t)uper Bowl party I ever attended (and only because she was putting it on and invited us). When he arrived home after his law school graduation his family had put up a huge banner in front of the house that read "Just What The World Needs -- Another Lawyer."
Jaime's been back in DC for several years now, working for the American Wind Energy Association, promoting a clean, alternative energy source.
There were a number of Michael stories told over the weekend, most of which seemed to start with "It was around the time that some woman was moving out on you..." (And I mean that in only the nicest, most honest way) Michael came in to the Kite Site as an artist (I still have one of him framed works) and left (with a somewhat broken heart) to go to work with his father in Vermont.
During the last months of my first marriage, a time filled with far too much confusion, pain and misery, I took to visiting Michael for the weekend at his father's house in Vermont. It was a great, rustic house that had served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, a space behind the coat closet wall serving as an unseen room where one wall was behind the living room fireplace for warmth.
I developed a love for Vermont in those days. It helped, of course, that I was travelling the area with a "native" or, at the very least, a Regular in the local coffee shops and restaurants. In those dark personal days, Michael provided me with a friendly sanctuary. It's still much appreciated, sir.
Dennis Lewis, the official manager of the Kite Site during the days, was someone I hadn't seen in almost 20 years. Aside from letting the dreadlocks grow out and the length of the beard, he's changed remarkably little. (In my mind, at least) He's still soft-spoken, funny and straightforwardly honest in a way I learned early to respect. I still do, for that matter.
Dennis taught me to take pride in my work and how to not take all of it too seriously. It was a good lesson, over many years, in keeping a balance in life.
Dennis was also the first serious photographer I knew. He's started scanning in some of his work and has it posted online. I'm still surprised he hasn't gone digital with his photography. Yet.
Though it had been twenty years or so, I remembered Tom's laugh vividly when I heard it again on the Mall. It's a rousing burst of joy and celebration.
It's funny the things I forget. Getting to remember them again is a gift.
So, the first night I worked at The Kite Site I spent it with Tom Powers. Back in those days Tom's hair was longer, curly and black. Tom was a dead shot with a Toobee and I named a particular corner of the store, high over the staircase leading downstairs, in his honor. Jaime had never met Tom before, but he knew of him from "The Tom Powers' Memorial Corner" for years.
After all, isn't that what Memorials are all about?
Tom's son, Davis, joined in with the game of Toobee that us old-timers started up when the winds took a break, temporarily grounding all of our kites. I tried telling Davis and his sister that their father was very cool in his day -- but, as Bonn pointed out to me later, why should they believe one old guy talking about another old guy?
If there was a crazy man amongst the Kite Siteers, it was Eric. No question about it.
My first night at the store, Eric came in. Seeing me, he walked behind the counter, took a huge hit of helium (normally used for balloons), walked back to the front of the counter and from a standing position, jumped on top of the counter, landing in a crouch. Thrusting his hand out to me he said, in his best squeeky Munchkin voice, "Hi! I'm Eric. Who are you?"
I knew right then that I liked him.
Over the years Eric used his time at The Kite Site to make his own chainmail vest, to test whether you could fully inflate a green trash bag with helium and then seal it sufficiently so it would float above the street, tied to a lampost (answer: yes) and to regale me with stories of his bike racing triumphs and disasters. He grew his hair long, cut it to a mohawk when he was drumming for a punk band and, I believe, had a variety of colors to it from time to time.
Every night before the Kite Festival Eric would come in, usually around 10pm, to buy the supplies he needed to make that year's kite for entry in the Smithsonian Kite Festival. He'd stay up all night cutting, sewing and getting it ready. Late the next afternoon he'd invariably come into the store with his First Place trophy. It would annoy the heck out of those kite enthusiasts who had spent weeks and weeks on their kites for the competition.
In all of my Kite Site years I had never made it down to the Smithsonian Kite Festival. It was a day I'd always work -- it was the busiest day of the year at The Kite Site and, being something of a Good Company Man, I actually enjoyed working the day. Seeing hundreds of kites in the skies was great, but being there with some old, good friends was even better.
When some brief showers tried to come, we all headed our various directions. Jaime and his fiance, Whitney, Michael and Chuck and his wife Lynn met up with Bonn and I at a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we all made our way to Chuck and Lynn's house in Virginia where we talked, drank, ate some of Chuck's legendary brownies (I special requested them), looked through some old Kite Site photographs and told a few stories.
Somehow I had managed to miss Chuck's obsessive Spatula collection through the years. (Chuck -- Bonn bought me an old spatula at a Goodwill shortly after we got back. She was afraid I might be suffering from Spatula Envy. I'll send you a picture if you'd like) He showed us an article written about him that was in the Washington Post showing his kitchen wall filled with spatulas of all types. And then he brought up the antique promotional cookbook pamphlets he'd collected over the years.
My kinda guy.
Bonn had met Jaime and Michael and had heard about everyone else for all of our years together. She didn't hang out on the Mall flying kites with us (too much sun during her surfing years) but she had a good time during the evening. She doesn't like this picture, but I don't think I've taken a picture of her that she's liked.
I owe all of these people a lot. Saying thanks ("thanks") is a start towards letting them know.
...
