Kids who can kite

I first heard the word “kite” used as a verb in a dusty, vacant lot of a half-built South Louisiana subdivision in the summer of 1979. It was spoken with child-like reverence.

It was how a neighborhood friend named Daren described running fast. Not simply kind of fast, but blisteringly fast.

Like when a boy in Chuck Taylors, playing two-hand touch in an unmown field, cuts at the sweet olive tree and blows by the kid covering him.

Or when a kid bolts confidently off a makeshift first base and easily beats the throw to second. Or when four or five kids line up at the stop sign for a street sprint, and one kid just burns them all.

In our little world, Daren was that kid. He was the Alpha boy on our block, faster than anyone, a leader on our fields of play, the eldest son of our neighbors from across the street.

In the fall he loved to run post patterns and catch touchdowns. In spring he’d dribble through hapless, flailing hands for easy lay ups on the driveway. And in summer, he would smack home runs and steal bases until dusk when our parents called us in for supper.

The best times were when he outran other kids from a few streets over, usually older boys who had no idea how he could kite.

I had neither spoken nor heard the word as a verb for nearly 30 years, until it suddenly popped into my mind one recent Saturday at a high school track meet.

A cousin of mine had qualified for the state championship meet in the sprints. This was big doings and certainly something new for me. My personal best times are in diving for the TV remote and snatching the last chocolate donut.

A clutch of parents, aunts, uncles and cousins watched nervously from the grandstand for several hours as Ben’s races approached.

On the track he may be a sprinter, but between events he’s a slow poke, a dawdler, a kid without a care in the world. Still, I figured he’d compete hard and do OK.

But he did better than OK. He won three of his four races, and was named outstanding male track athlete for the meet.

In the 100 meter dash, he took off faster than usual and outran boys who’d beaten him before.

The 200 was a thing of beauty. Ben came off the turn trailing, but kicked into a higher gear and surged past the others for a personal-best time. And in the 4-by-100 relay, he was the second leg of a team that came within a quarter-second of the all-time state record.

His mom and dad clapped and cheered through teary eyes in the fading afternoon sun as their boy, a senior, climbed one final time onto the top step of the awards podium.

Their little boy, now a muscular young man, stood tall and relaxed, chatting amiably with the runners-up on the lower steps to his right and left.

He had stood on those steps before, but not on this day. Today, he got to stand where few people ever do, on the spot reserved for those rarest of kids: Kids who can kite.