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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Memories tugged by kites, taffy Kites are magical. Your kite is way up there, bouncing along through the air, sending tugs down the string as if it were alive. You have very little control over most kites. The lower-priced ones, especially, pretty much go where the wind wants them to go. The best winds are at the coast -- as are the best saltwater taffy shops. As a child growing up in the '30s, I remember having had only one chance to fly a kite. I was out in a large park near our apartment when a man asked me to hold his kite string while he returned to his car for something. His kite was very fancy, and it was way up in the sky. The man carefully instructed me on how to keep the kite flying. "And don't you dare let the string get away from you," he warned as he strolled away. That kite was about as tall as I was and shaped like a medieval shield. The paper was glued to a balsa frame, and a long tail of strips of cloth trailed below to give the craft stability. I have no idea how old I was at that time -- perhaps 10 or 12 -- but I fully accepted the responsibility of not letting the kite run away. There was a good wind that day, and just keeping it in the sky took all the energy I had. Then the man came back and I handed over the string. End of memory. Kites certainly changed between the '30s and the '60s, when our kids used to fly them. Nora and I were reminiscing recently about when the kids were little and she used to take them kite flying on "old hospital hill" here in Medford. The hill was the site of Sacred Heart Hospital, built in 1911 and once the only hospital in town. When the Sisters of Providence built the new hospital on Crater Lake Avenue in the early '60s, the old Sacred Heart on the hill was torn down. All that remained were small mounds of debris and some bricks. Nora thought the hill would be an ideal place to fly kites, and it proved to be so when the wind was blowing. But gusts of wind in Medford are usually confined to the months of March and April. We would get up on Saturday mornings with testing the wind as the first order of business. In one of our best kite-flying years, our three kids ranged in age from 10 to 5. Each had a kite, a rather cheap one, because the kites were continually breaking. Then the kids grew up, eventually got married, and began to supply us with grandchildren. And we occasionally go back to kite flying. On a recent Sunday afternoon in March, when the weather was warm and the winds rather strong, we went over to Bear Creek Park with our son Joe, his wife, Karen, and their son, Franklin, who is almost 4. Our kite went up and up until it reached the end of the first ball of string. Joe and Franklin were holding the string, and somehow in trying to attach another ball of string, the kite got away. And I mean "away." It took off almost straight up and flew south, where it disappeared from sight somewhere over the new building at the Manor. Kite flying reminds us of going to the coast and eating saltwater taffy. I developed a great love for taffy when my mother would occasionally pull a batch, but the cost of ingredients restricted the treat to special occasions. This year, Nora decided to be venturesome and make our own batch of taffy. She spread the word among some of our friends that she needed recipes for taffy. Several were sent to us, and she picked the most likely one. It called for sliced almonds, among other things. Pulling taffy on a non-commercial scale seems to have pretty well died out because it is a pain to pull away at a warm blob of candy. It's a matter of pull-and-restore to the blob, pull and restore, until the candy begins to look opaque. Then the candy is patted into long strings which are then cut into small pieces after it dries. It takes some time, but it's one of those activities that can help slow us down when life becomes too hectic. As can flying a kite. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA