LOVE AT FIRST KITE

How Pizza and pente led to one oklahoman's high-flying obession...

Vintage kites from all over the world hang from the ceiling and walls of the late Richard Dermer’s popular Hideaway Pizza restaurant in Stillwater, Oklahoma—and that’s only a fraction of his collection. To many locals, the kites might just seem like another piece of quirky décor. But not so. Dermer, who spoke with us before he passed away in March 2014, was an avid kite enthusiast, and each has a personal meaning.

“Three of those kites were made by people who won national championships for kite building”, Dermer says. “And some of them are cheap commercial kites that sold for $20 or $30. Almost all of them have a story of one sort or another. There’s a tissue-paper fighter kite an Indian schoolchild had colored with Crayolas before presenting it to me. There are Thai kites that have ceremonial significance in Southeast Asia. We’ve got one wall of nothing but Asian kites. Another section has a dozen different types of fighter kites.”

-By Lisa Hix

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