Say what?!

I'm an Obama fan. I'm also a newspaper fan and a yoga fan and a coffee fan. BIG TIME coffee fan. Fandom is all the rage these days, as anyone who spends time on Facebook can attest.

That's why I'm thinking of starting a Facebook group devoted to the alphabet (come to think of it, one probably already exists). That way, Elijah will have an online community as soon as he gets old enough to care about the world of online social networking. (He's not there yet, but only because he's developmentally delayed. I'm certain there are many 5-year-olds out there with an entire world of online friends.)

Elijah's love for the ABC's stretches back to his infancy, before Jeff or I had heard the word "hyperlexia." It was the Little Guy's all-consuming passion (until he started noticing basketball goals). He had several alphabet sets -- a refrigerator magnet set, a wooden block set, other wooden cut-out sets, a foam set, etc. While typical 18-month-olds were playing with dolls and trucks, he was arranging his ABC's in the proper order. While typical 2-year-olds were cuddling up to their teddy bears at night, he was insisting on taking his wooden letters to bed with him, and he'd snuggle up to them as if they were the softest silk imaginable. You get the picture.

Along with his love for all things alphabet-related came a love for spelling out words. He's always gotten a big kick out of the fact that he can spell something out and then Mom and Dad can actually READ it! This is very exciting for a child who has trouble with spoken language -- it's by far the easiest way he can communicate. So during his toddlerhood, he delighted in spelling out various messages on tabletops throughout the house:



Unbelievable, indeed!




Like I mentioned earlier, I'm a big fan of coffee .... just passing it down to the next generation!

Over the years he has graduated to writing, but every once in a while he still wants one of his alphabet sets. A few days ago, he came running into the den demanding to know where a particular set was. It was his foam set, which I told him was down in the basement. I must confess I've never paid much attention to how he pronounces the word "foam," but when I went down to the basement a few minutes later, it became apparent that "foam" wasn't what he'd been calling them all along (note the label he spelled out at the top):




I had to laugh, because, well, phone letters ARE all uppercase, at least on most phone keypads I've ever seen.

This incident got me wondering about all the things I might have mis-heard as a child. I'm sure there were some doozies -- listening carefully never really was my strong suit. I remember one in particular, which came to mind recently because of turmoil halfway around the globe.

I was about 5 when terrorists struck at the 1972 Munich Olympics -- a major news event that I somehow managed to grow up completely ignorant of. I was 30 when Jeff and I were at the local Jewish Community Center and happened to pass by a display honoring the Israeli athletes who were murdered at that Olympics. For Jeff, who's Jewish and 12 years older than me, it was a watershed historical event. For me, it was .... "The what attack? What Munich Olympics? Huh?" (Thanks for marrying me anyway, honey!) All I have to say in my defense is this: I grew up in the rural Ozarks, where the history of Arab-Israeli relations was not a focus of our formal education (But we watched classroom films about rifle and hunting safety! True story!). So give me a break, OK?

Anyway, I'm thinking it must have been during the TV news coverage of that time that I mis-heard a phrase that makes Elijah's "phone letters" look perfectly rational.

Back then, politically motivated killers weren't called "terrorists." They were called "guerrillas." So the phrase "Palestinian guerrillas" was all over the place, and it really had me confused.

I just couldn't figure out what a bunch of gorillas were doing living in a palace.

With Indians.