We're going on for what's in John Kennedy was president.
Yeah, something like that.
I think it's about 24 years now we've been doing the out of sight.
I was close.
And you know what?
You were there.
I was there.
Yeah.
The thing I remember most about the out of sight guy flight was that giant octopus.
And it just sat there all day long in the sky.
It just stayed there.
Well, you know, that octopus has grown.
It used to be a hundred feet.
Now it's grown to 150 feet.
It's a big kite.
And it stays up there.
Just it does.
Well, you have it anchored into the ground that won't and then you've got used to have.
I don't know if you still do those demonstration team.
Schogelfire kite team.
Thanks for coming in.
Well, they're not.
They come into Milwaukee.
Right.
They don't come to connoisse anymore.
But we have a team called wow.
And it's it's it's from Washington, DC.
And wow stands for wings over Washington.
Okay.
And they fly four line kites.
And so you've got five members flying each flying a kite with four lines.
And they're doing routines and they do it to music.
It's unbelievable.
Well, let's start off with the first one.
It's coming up real soon.
It's coming up May 23 and May 24.
It's the IKEA family kite festival.
And this is a veterans park in Milwaukee.
Right.
How long has this been going?
That one's been going on for.
I think this is our 40th.
Wait a minute.
Really?
40th, 38th year.
So this one's longer than connoisse.
I didn't know.
It's longer.
Yeah.
All right.
You got a key involved.
We got IKEA.
IKEA has been a great partner.
We've we've been working with them for the last three years.
This will be our fourth season with IKEA.
And just couldn't be happier.
They promote our stuff in Chicago and bowling, bowling brook and in Chamburg and up here
in Oak Creek.
And I think they're going to be promoting when they get down to gurney mills, which
will be fun.
Oh, Creek.
Yeah.
Oh, Creek.
Oh, somebody said when he heard somebody say, oh, Creek, he said, only Hicks, say
Creek.
So, you know what that you must be sitting on pins and needles like a few days before
looking at that weather forecast.
Oh, you better believe it because not only do you need sunshine, you need wind.
I need wind.
And I don't need rain.
Well, yeah.
That goes.
Anything outdoors doesn't need rain, but you got to have wind involved or a couple of,
you know, bella coast people who don't have to talk a lot, they can get the wind going.
It's we were talking before we went on the air, but that hot air balloon that landed
in somebody's backyard.
Right.
I saw the video.
Yeah.
He said, there was no wind.
It couldn't move.
He was just static in the air and he said, I'm going to bring it down.
Well, he was running out of gas.
Right.
Right.
Running fuel to the runway.
He had 13 people in that wicker basket.
Yeah.
And this guy goes out in this backyard.
It looks like there's 13 people waving at the wicker basket.
Yeah.
I know.
What is this?
Yeah.
And the guy was masterful.
The way he brought it down.
Yeah.
He didn't, the balloon didn't touch anything.
He was in a residential neighborhood.
Right.
Yeah.
He had to wait for the wind.
Yeah.
Great pilot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So let's talk about the, you've got the big opening ceremony, the big, what, 2,000,
3,000 kinds.
We have 600 kinds.
Well, what we do is we have what we call the grand lawn.
Yeah.
And the grand launch is where we launch 600 kites and it's not us.
So we invite the public to come down, bring a kite.
If they don't have a kite, they can certainly buy one from gift of wings.
Yeah.
You brought one with it.
I brought one with me.
And, and we do that to Mary Poppins.
Let's go fly a kite.
Right.
Yeah.
And it's spectacular to see all of these kites in the air.
And even if the wind is a little low, you know, they're running around out there.
They get those kites up.
Yeah.
What the thing was, why had kites as a kid?
The biggest thing was, oh no, it's getting stuck in the fell of the phone pole wires.
Oh, it's getting stuck in the tree and you got to do it in an open area, luckily you
have an open area.
Yeah.
In Milwaukee, of course, it's Veterans Park.
In Kenosha, it's Kennedy Park.
And so wide open areas.
One of the nice things about both of those parks is that we're right on Lake Michigan.
So we always, I shouldn't say always.
Don't say that.
Don't say always.
But the whammy jam on this whole thing.
We usually have great wind coming right off the water.
Let's give our rabbits feet a big lucky roll.
That's right.
You said that.
Okay.
Now, we're going to talk about the dates of the times.
This is the one in Milwaukee at Veterans Park.
This is the Milwaukee one.
Right.
And the times are.
The times are from 10 a.m. until 6 a.m. on Saturday and 5 p.m. on Saturday and 5 p.m.
on Sunday with the grand launch both days at 12 noon.
And you also have a kid's mad dash at 230 just kids.
Yeah.
We invite 100 kids each day to sign up and participate in the event to see who can
get their kite the highest in 60 seconds.
And we'll give them a free kite.
Now, in the Milwaukee one, that's where you have the Chicago fire kite team.
And they do it.
It's all choreographed in music.
Oh, yeah.
And they really handle those kites and masterful.
They have two like controllers, right?
The kites.
And I've seen them several times that it's just wonderful to watch.
He's memorizing.
Well, in Milwaukee, we also have a team called the windjamers from Detroit.
And the windjamers, now I want you to imagine this.
You've got five members on the team.
Each member has 12 kites.
So you have 60 kites flying all at the same time and then they each have two lines.
And they don't get tangled up.
They go, well, we won't say that, but.
Put the ram and jam on.
Yeah.
Don't go.
Don't do that, Todd.
They usually don't get tangled up, but, but they put on a show that'll just make you
cry.
It's so good.
Scott Fisher from Gift of Wings is with us today and they put on two amazing, but actually
you do more than that.
We do more.
Yeah.
But two amazing ones coming up at Veterans Park in Milwaukee.
It's the IKEA family kite festival family kite festival and the out of sight kite flight
in Kenosha in Kennedy Park, which is one I'm more familiar with.
Yeah.
I've been there many, many times.
Let's talk about the Kenosha one.
What's on the bill affair now you have you don't have the Chicago fire down there anymore.
Who do you have?
Well, we have a team.
One of our favorite teams is called Wow and and Wings over Washington and they're from
Washington, DC.
They fly four line kites.
So you've got five members each with a kite that has four lines and they do routines
to music and it's unbelievable.
We also have somebody coming down and and a lot of your listeners will be familiar with
them.
Connor Doran.
Connor Doran appeared on America's Got Talent flying a kite indoors.
That was his talent.
That was his talent.
Connor has epilepsy.
Why do you fire?
I get flight indoors.
Well, you just move a lot.
Oh, you got to run around with it.
Yeah, you get to run around with it.
But he's Charlie Brown with his kite.
Exactly.
And his kite has four lines.
And so it was it was quite the quite the entertainment piece and Connor ended up coming
in 12th out of 90,000 contestants.
So I grabbed onto him and he comes around to all of our events now.
Well, good for you.
Excellent.
That's great.
Now, the one in Kenosha at Kennedy Park is June 6th and 7th.
The one in Milwaukee.
It's going to be May 23rd and 24th.
So June 6th and 7th at Kennedy Park, both of these events are free by the way.
Oh, yeah.
Free with free parking.
Yeah.
You don't have to pay any.
Bring, bring grandma, bring everybody and uncles, bring everybody, bring the strollers
with the kids.
Landy of parking.
You still have that thing where the kids make their kites out of paper?
Yes.
Yeah, we do.
We do work.
They work great.
It's just a little eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper and with a little design on
the kids color it and fold it and up it goes.
Now the grand launch there includes 500 kites at noon that day, both days, about 500 kites
in Kenosha and that'll go off right at noon and that's to Mary Poppins.
Let's go fly a kite.
Yeah.
I remember that from the movie.
Yeah.
That was good.
And you also give away 100 kites each day to the first 100 kids that sign up and participate
to see who gets their kite the highest in 60 seconds.
Yeah.
And that is a great contest for kids.
But Don, I need after this event, I'm going to need your help on tangling line.
Can I count on you?
Oh, sure.
I'll be there in a couple of months.
Is that a no?
Is that that a problem?
Sometimes it can be.
Now, those big ones like the octopus that you have floating in the sky, right?
Now, you're going to set those up and hopefully nobody interferes with that line.
Well, no, nobody, nobody does.
I mean, that is a 4,000 pound line.
That is a, that's a big kite.
The kite.
Heavy is that kind.
That kite is about 100 pounds.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have one in the shape of a shark and we call it our IKEA kite because it says IKEA on
the side.
And that one's 100 feet long and we hold that down with 4,000 pound line.
Let's talk about the other ones you have.
Now, we talked about the one at Veterans Park in Milwaukee and we, the Kennedy Park in
Kenosha.
If you put branching out now.
Oh, yeah.
We're going on May 2nd.
We're going down to Graf Park in Wheaton, Illinois.
And for the go fly a kite, kite festival and that will be on Saturday, May 2nd.
And then the following week, we come back up to Greendale in Community Park and we fly
and we call it Kites Over Greendale.
And we'll be flying all of our big kites and we've got a couple of performers there.
Those are smaller ones.
The ones in the ones in Kenosha and Milwaukee are huge.
Got to tell Cindy Huber, one of our announcers, she's in Greendale.
Yeah.
We're flying right over her house.
They probably will be, too.
I want to get this in before we forget about it.
You flew some, flew some blimps, not kites, but blimps, what are they, remote control blimps?
Remote control blimps.
Yeah, what do I tell us about that?
Well, first of all, I started flying blimps about 25 years ago for the Milwaukee admirals.
So we fly at every game.
And these are, these are not like good year blimps.
These are smaller ones.
These are smaller ones of 15 feet.
But we were invited, our team from the Milwaukee admirals was invited to fly blimps at the final
four this year and the championship game.
So we got to fly in the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in front of 70,000 people.
And it was quite the thrill.
That's terrific.
Look at you.
You know, most people have to go to work.
They go work in a factory, they work in an office.
You fly kites for a living.
I fly kites.
Everybody says, when are you going to retire?
And I say, why?
Why?
What am I going to do?
Fly a kite?
Hey, you can do it from a wheelchair too.
Yeah, that's right.
You just tie the other thing to the wheelchair and just, you know, fly from a chair.
Sure.
Yeah.
It's like me too, my mother said, you're going to do this forever in radio with her.
Why not?
Why not?
Why would I want to work for a living?
You know, I should also mention down that we have something called a candy drop.
And yes, the candy, but the kids, the candy drop, yeah.
And we're going to, we're going to drop, imagine your 10 years old and candy is falling
from the sky.
Now, the kids are not under the candy.
Yeah.
They're under the candy.
Really?
Yeah.
Because I remember them making a mad dash for it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
They're under it and they're making a mad dash.
I'm hoping one of these days we can drop gummy bears from a horrible, our, our, our
friends to the South and in Pleasant Prairie, wouldn't that be great gummy bears falling
from the sky?
If they're wrapped.
Yeah.
They have to be wrapped.
Okay.
I want a quick review because I want to get all this information in now.
Coming up on May 23rd and 24th at Milwaukee Veterans Park.
It's the IKEA family tight festival free event, free parking, don't have to spend anything.
There's food.
You kite store will be there.
If you want to buy a kite, you can do that where you can bring your own kite does make
a difference.
Uh, then on, um, then you've got the out of sight kite flight.
That's also a key.
Right?
That's a key.
Oh, I a key out of sight kite flight June 6th and 7th at the Kennedy Park in Kenosha.
Again, free event, free parking in Milwaukee hours are Milwaukee hours are 10 until six
on Saturday and 10 until five on Sunday.
Okay.
And the Kenosha 10 until five, both days, Saturday and Sunday free parking, free event,
bring the kids, bring granny, bring everybody, bring everybody in.
And I just want to thank a big shout out to our friends over at IKEA because they, they
have really stepped up to the plate and, and, and helped us make these a lot more successful.
You can hear before the, uh, Kenosha one.
Yeah.
Well, people have a short memory.
We've got to remind them.
Yeah.
Well, we'll definitely do it.
We always do it.
Yeah.
We've got you in here too.
And you brought.
So what's this kite here?
This is a one string kite, right?
This is a single line kite.
It's a delta, um, and you just put a line on it and let out a little bit of line five
or six feet and just let the wind do the work.
Yeah.
Wow.
It's pretty nice too.
And I, and I think if my memory serves me, I think you flew some of these in Kenosha
in Kennedy Park.
I've been there so many times I could have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you have.
I don't know my running days are the kind of over, but yeah, I used to love kites when
I was a kid.
I didn't have any empty fields where nothing but trees and telephone lines and so you couldn't
let it up too high.
Well, and the other problem back then was that kites were made out of paper and yes, paper
and they didn't last very long and you had to put them together as a whole.
Your dad had to help you.
Yeah.
You had to get the wood things and you had to get the paper wrapped around and yeah.
And that, you know, that's sort of the fun, but they didn't last long now.
These kites are made of nylon and you can fight sparring and you have to put them together.
You don't have to put them together.
Then they last forever.
I remember my father getting the wood sticks, the two sticks making the cross with the
wood sticks.
Then you have to wrap the paper around it and you follow the instructions and you have
to give the strings in the right place.
Yeah.
I forgot about the paper ones.
Yeah.
A lot of memories with kites.
So where's the gift of wings, your place?
The gift of wings is located of course in Greendale.
We've got a great, great store in Greendale and in Franklin on Highway 100 in Loomis and
we also have our big kite store down in Veterans Park right off the Lincoln Memorial
Drive downtown Milwaukee.
It's a big park with lots of wind.
There's lots of wind in this studio when I talk.
Scott, thanks a lot for coming in.
Hey, Don, thanks a lot and Don.
Yes.
Go fly a kite.
Yeah.
You'll love saying that people don't do.
I do.
Yeah.
You got Fisher from gift of wings and the IKEA out of sight kite fighting Kenosha and
in Milwaukee, it's called the IKEA family kite festival.
They both coming up soon.
We did go online if they want to find information and go to gift of wings.com.
There you go.
Gift of wings that down.
Thank you, Scott.
