There was the day, four years ago, when the great jazz singer Kurt Elling and I, two people not light on self-confidence, decided that we would teach our 4-year-old daughters to fly kites.
So, we bought a couple of plastic, diamond-shaped kites at a toy store, and we walked over to the treeless field that fronts the Museum of Science and Industry.
A strong breeze was blowing in off the lake, and with great assuredness we began assembling the kites. We managed that, but the ensuing hour was a disaster, a humiliating early afternoon that saw the kites get no more than three or four feet off the ground (because we were tossing them that high), two little girls so bored they left us to play tag with some other kids, and two dads tangled up in string and trying to cope with the combination of embarrassment and incredulity.
