Dear Diary:
It was the first day of fall windy enough for flying a kite, so my daughter, Hendrica, and I went to Inwood Hill Park for some aeronautics.
We were soon joined by others we knew: Taseen and his mother, and Evelyn and hers. The children all took turns running with the ladybug kite.
This continued until the kite flew above a tree. The string wound up down one side and the body and long tails were stuck, about 30 feed up, to the branches on the other.
The parents gathered to analyze and lament. The children had other plans.
There was a group of construction workers nearby who were filling in a trench behind a tall cyclone fence. The children ran over and tried to make enough noise to get their attention. Evelyn raked a big branch along the fence. Taseen rang the bell on his scooter. Hendrica decided that clapping and marching might do the trick.
The adults laughed while watching what seemed like a fruitless effort. B ut then one of the men, wearing a hard hat, emerged from his work area and followed the children to the offending tree.
He climbed up, extending himself out onto branches smaller than his boots until he reached the top and retrieved the kite. He wrapped its long tails up carefully and dropped it down to the ground.
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