My little boy is showing signs of being a science fiction fan. He loves airplanes, you see. He can often see them flying in the sky before I notice them, and I was trained to look for other aircraft, back in the days that I flew airplanes. If he hears and airplane, he’ll start shouting, “eh-pane! eh-pane!” and run to the window, neck bent up toward the sky.
Yesterday, he was sitting on my lap while I was sorting through my stack of old Astounding’s. I got to the March 1941 issue with the Rogers’ cover for Heinlein’s “Logic of Empire” and suddenly, the Little Man grew excited.
“Eh-pane!” he said.
Well, not quite an airplane, but certainly a spaceship. I tried telling him it was a spaceship, but he doesn’t quite get that yet. “Eh-pane,” he insisted.
He then further insisted that we go through all of the other magazines in the stack and find covers containing other “Eh-panes.” There are quite a few and every time the Little Man sees one of these covers, he gets a big smile on his face.
And of course, I’m doing what I can to subtly encourage his interest.
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Adorable, Jamie. Sounds like he’s developed “eh-pane” as a category term. He’ll refine it as he goes on… 🙂
Yesterday he was referring to the elevator car in a glass elevator at the mall as an “eh-pane”, I suppose because it goes up and down. What’s interesting is that he does distinguish between birds and airplanes, and he didn’t always do that.