Flying Kites--A Better Use of Air

Hexagonal kites, hang gliders and children's plastic Hi-Fliers dominated the skies Saturday and left mounds of tangled twine in their wake during the 12th annual Great Boston Kite Festival on Roxbury's Franklin Park Golf Course.

The Committee for the Better Use of Air (CBUA), sponsors of the day-long celebration, awarded prizes to the most unusual and highest flying kites--but most of the tens of thousands of fliers threw their dreams of glory into the winds and strolled about the park to enjoy 70-degree weather and their fellows: food vendors, musicians, face painters, mimes and Chinese dragon dancers.

The CBUA, a non-profit organization, chose the seldom-used Roxbury site for the festival in 1968 to draw members from all of Boston's communities.

The CBUA also held free kite-making workshops in several Boston neighborhoods for two weeks before the festival. This year, the Covenant of Racial Justice, Equity, and Harmony--an ecumenical group dedicated to improving race relations in the city--endorsed the festival from pulpits throughout Boston.

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The kite festival, which CBUA bills as a "fly-by-day event," is the second largest in the world. The largest is the thousand-year-old Kite Day in Kyoto, Japan.