How To Go Fly A Kite ... ??

What did the Beaumont Enterprise have to do with an oak tree that was growing behind J. L. Giles Elementary School during the summer of 1951? I’ll explain.

I was fifteen years old and had just completed the ninth grade at South Park High School in Beaumont. My family still lived in the 1300 block of Pipkin Street just one block from Giles School.

Now bear in mind that my mother was quite the collector of various and sundry items. Seldom would she throw anything away. One worthwhile result of this was a collection of historic newspaper headlines. Her source for this activity was the daily Beaumont Enterprise. She had a cardboard box partially filled with front pages from that newspaper. I remember one that read, “Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor.” Another one announced the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. My mother saved these headlines along with others in what she called her “keeper” box. OK, hold that thought.

Here I am a young teenager with no driver’s license and a summer of free time. So, what to do? Always this is the burning question with a young teenager. I decided one afternoon to fly a kite over at Giles School. Problem was that I had no kite. In those days, kites were available only during kite season which transpired every March. But this was the end of June and there were no kites to be had. The solution was to fly a homemade kite.

I gathered up the supplies. There were sticks from old kites. There was the little jar of paste. And I had kite string. The missing ingredient was the paper to fashion a kite. In previous years, I used butcher paper from Parina’s IGA grocery store over on Brockman Street. Other times I used newspapers. You know, newspapers always flew like a kite. I mean really. There was great joy in using newspapers to construct kites. The weights and balances generally were ideal.

So the frame took shape with string holding the wooden sticks in place. Now it was time to paste paper around the frame. But first the appropriate paper for the task had to be located.

As I think back it was quite ironic that my mother’s “keeper” box of historic headlines was right there in the corner of the room. Talk about convenient. She had so many headlines she really would not miss just one.

I grabbed hold of the headline on top of the stack which was the last one my mother had deemed worthy to save. It read, “Truman Fires MacArthur.” You see, earlier in 1951, President Harry S. Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur for being over zealous with the Korean conflict. My mother considered this newsworthy and saved that headline.

The page made a great kite. I had the headline positioned front and center on the kite. I carried the creation over to the back campus of Giles School and allowed the determined breeze to give flight. I could still read the headline. But wait a minute. The Truman side of things began leaning off to the left. General MacArthur started reeling. Those headlines crashed into the top of one of the several elegant oak trees that lined the Giles School campus.

Of course I pulled and tugged but ended up shredding that newspaper to pieces. I cut the string and left Truman and MacArthur up a tree … literally.

My mother never missed that headline and most certainly I saw no point in ever calling it to her attention.

And now you know how that the Beaumont Enterprise and an oak tree behind Giles Elementary School became partakers in a story of yesteryear during the summer of
1951.

Winston Hamby
WinHamby@comcast.net