Kites!

My cousin Eric, who lives in Ohio and is a Facebook friend, emailed a link to this video to me this morning.

Eric is a musician, is particularly fond of this piece of music and was enthralled by the way it works with Ray Bethell’s kite ballet. He mentioned that Bethell is in his 80s and is deaf. Bethell is a regular participant in the Long Beach (Wash.) International Kite Festival.

I recognized the kites immediately from the 2001 festival I took in with my son Sean when I was out that way on a long motorcycle ride. I wrote a travel piece for The Indianapolis Star, illustrating it with a few photos I had shot.

Checking my scanned images, I found these two. You can’t see who is flying the kites, but it almost certainly has to be Ray Bethell.