The wind hadn't picked up yet.

At 2 on a June afternoon, the wind speed was pingponging between 5 and 7 mph as Mix McGraw, of San Jose, Calif., adjusted his 80 kites, each standing upright in the clumpy sand of Bastendorff Beach.

"This is my nemesis. This is my nightmare," McGraw joked, gesturing at the train of kites that he painstakingly realigned into the wee hours of the morning. "I've spent a lot of sleepless nights with these things."

McGraw needs winds of 12 mph to keep the kites, 8 inches by 10 inches and tethered together, in the air.

Impatient in the lull, McGraw predicted the wind would spike at 4 p.m., long enough for him to put on a show for his mother-in-law, Mary Langenberg, of Coos Bay, who was celebrating her 80th birthday with the family.

The family, approximately 30 people occupying lawn chairs in the sand near Bastendorff Beach Road, sipped sodas and beer, hoisted children onto their laps, joked with each other and clapped whenever the kites got airborne. They accounted for three generations and represented six states. Almost every year they regroup for a family reunion.

One year, they went on a tropical cruise. Another, they went to a fireworks display in Roseburg.

"We try to do something every year," said McGraw's wife, Patricia. "If nothing's coming up - "

" - we make something," McGraw finished.

They like weddings because it gives the family the chance to reunite in non-summer months.

And this year, the family was there to watch McGraw, their world-record-setting in-law, fly 80 kites.

But the wind still hadn't picked up and McGraw was kneeling in the sand, a niece playing piggyback on his thick neck while he listened to the wind.

"It's important to learn how to read the wind 'cause if you don't, there will be a huge mess," he said.

It's obvious McGraw has learned to read the wind well: He can guess the windspeed within a mile per hour from a barometer reading, all by listening and studying the white caps on wave crescents.

Most people would think of McGraw as some sort of guru, possessing an almost spiritual knowledge of wind speeds and the amount of space that should be between the kites to allow the wind flow necessary to keep the set airborne, but he doesn't.

McGraw pointed out that it was only four years between 1982, the year he bought his first kite, and the year he set his first unofficial world record.

"I got started in this - I wanted to get a stuffed animal for my daughter and I walked into a kite shop. I bought myself a dual-line kite ... and taught myself to fly," McGraw said, adding with a wry grin, "And I never bought the stuffed animal."

He aimed to set a benchmark in simultaneous-kite flying simply because it was something different.

"When you do something, you don't want to do something someone else has started. You're a leader or a follower," McGraw said, "and I am not a follower."

He set that first record in 1986, flying diamond kites that measured 15 inches long by 13 inches wide - flying 52 of them, to be exact.

"Everybody said I couldn't do it. 'You're going against the laws of physics,'" McGraw said proudly. But he did it and did it again, breaking several world-record barriers: 200 simultaneous kites, 220 simultaneous kites and finally, 253 simultaneous kites.

Last year, he decided to make his records official by having one logged in the Guiness Book of World Records. And, with a recorded 219 simultaneous kites snaking through the wind, he set the first record in the category.

Not only are his world records a constant source of pride for McGraw and entertainment for his friends and family, the flying has kept him fit.

"It's a very good workout, mental and physical," McGraw said, tapping his temple. "You've got to be thinking."

Because each kite is pulling the weight of the wind plus the weight of the remaining train, the force is extraordinary. One momentary lapse of thinking, McGraw said, and fliers can get swept off their feet.

To counteract the pull, McGraw has learned how to stand just right: parallel with the train of kites, his feet dug into the sand in a karate stance as he leans forward slightly to lower his center of gravity.

These days, McGraw isn't as interested in beating his own world records as teaching others what he's learned from his on-again, off-again, 19-year relationship with kite flying.

"There's a lot in this," he said, citing another example: "I've been working on this turning problem for a couple of months, but there's no one I can talk to about it."

McGraw's dream is to start a nonprofit organization to teach children how to fly, how to set records ... how to defy the laws of physics when no one thinks it's possible.

"This is not about me anymore," McGraw said, shaking his head. "I'm just a spoke in the wheel. It's all for a bigger scheme ... to me, knowledge is nothing if you can't pass it on."

It's for that reason that McGraw rejects the I'm-not-a-role-model philosophy adopted by such athletes as basketball star Charles Barkley.

"It's a responsibility to be a role model," McGraw said. "I would much rather be known as someone who knew a little and did a lot than someone who knew a lot and did so little."

After a brief, thoughtful pause as he listened to the wind, a wide smile crept across his face.

"What time is it?" he asked.

A beat, and then McGraw asked again, "What time is it?" while holding his watch out of the glare of the sun.

"It's four o'clock," he said, triumphantly.

And the wind had picked back up.