When I was a teenager living in Philadelphia, one of the joys of summer was when my family consisting of parents, brother and three sisters went to the seashore for a week or so in Cape May County New Jersey, usually in Stone Harbor or Avalon and sometimes in Longport or Wildwood. One of the peak shore experiences was when my father, who had a great kite we simply called "The Dragon Kite", would fly it during one of the days at the shore. The kite had a scary head with flaming cloth extending to each side and a whole bunch of circular panels with tasseled extensions, strung together to form the dragon. Father would fly it "way up there" and we'd take turns holding it, feeling the strong pull of the kite. The kite was so magical, scary and mysterious, from a different realm, an adult thing we kids had to stay away from when the kite was in storage. The launch consisted of carefully laying the kite out on the beach and then with perhaps several people holding the kite in place, ready to let go as tension was applied in preparation for lift off.

The origin of the kite is unknown, lost in family history, as both parents have passed away. Father divorced mother in the early 1970's and that was the last of I saw of the kite until about 40 years later as the estate of his second wife was being settled. In early 2014 I took stewardship of the kite and decided to restore it and once again see it fly!

The pictures shown here were taken from around 1971 near The Golden Inn at Avalon New Jersey.

Preparing for launch

Preparing for launch

In flight

In flight - the paper in the last two segments had already been replaced with plain paper by this time

The joy of flying the kite

The joy of flying the kite

Way up there!

Coming in for a landing

Crowd pleaser