Al and I had known each other in college, but I never wanted to “date” him because he was a lady killer.  Not that I was exactly a wallflower but I didn’t think we’d be a good match.  About three years after college we were reunited by a mutual friend in Chicago for a ball game.  The rest is history as they say, but it was a week later when I knew this man was for me.  Living in Evanston, Al took me to the lakefront park for a picnic.  I don’t remember much about the day (beer was involved) but I do remember that Al flew a kite.   I had never gotten the hang of flying a kite and so I was pretty impressed by his kite-flying prowess.

It was on the way home that I fell in love for good.  He walked the kite all the way back to the apartment, through the city streets, past the apartment buildings, and amazingly, past old Evanston oak trees that would make any self-respecting kite tremble.  At one point he had to fly the kite between two trees with no more than a ten foot space between them.  An old man stopped dead in his tracks to join me in watching this feat.  Al just glided the kite between those two kite eaters without even a momentary pause, and he did it with the joy of a young boy.  The old man looked at me and smiled and said “I didn’t think he was gonna make it!”  It is one of the great things he did as a Dad, teaching the boys how to fly a kite – it’s a great way to impress chicks, I hear.