I have a series of framed pictures in my office of my son sitting in the captain's chair at age 18 months (UA 777), 5 years (UA 777), 8 years (UA A320) and 11 years old (DL MD88). He has the captain's hat on in all of the pictures.

Until last year, he would ask the FA's if they wanted any help and was always put to work. Almost always, he ended up with a free meal box or a Zip-loc bag full of pretzel packets. Alas, he is getting older now and would rather listen to his iPod or watch a movie instead of helping the crew.

Somewhere in a big box of photos at home, there is a picture of me around 8 years old sitting in the captain's chair of an Allegheny Airlines BAC-111. Back in the stone ages of the early 70's before the world went psychotic, I even got invited to sit in the flightdeck jumpseat for a short hop from BDL to PVD.