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I Used to Believe
What silly notions did you believe as a kid? Here is a long list, supplied by volunteers, look to the left for extra links. Here is one good example of many:
I believed that Girl Scouts could arrest people as the police could, and that Boy Scouts could go to war.
I used to believe that it was the wedding ring which somehow caused children to come (really, and yes I was worried about what this meant for traditional scientific theories of causality). I also used to believe that a baseball shortstop had to be short, and that dealing with adult life -- just the simple mechanics of paying bills and the like -- would prove immensely complicated and perhaps beyond my capabilities.
I used to claim -- but not believe -- that my invisible friend Bing Bing lived under the refrigerator.
The pointer is from the always interesting www.geekpress.com.
What did you once believe?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 20, 2007 at 07:23 AM in Data Source | Permalink
Comments
I believed there was a different Pope in every country. I live in Italy.
Posted by: Filter at Mar 20, 2007 8:26:26 AM
I believed that the homecoming queen in 'Daydream Believer' was a queen, and she was coming home.
Posted by: Teman at Mar 20, 2007 8:36:08 AM
I believed that police and firemen didn't have to eat, possesing superhuman abilities. You can imagine my shock when I first saw two police in a Burger King.
Posted by: pawnking at Mar 20, 2007 8:37:38 AM
I also believed that the shortstop had to be short. I believed for a very long time that girls never went to the bathroom. I knew a dog named Pete, so I thought that all dogs were named Pete for quite a few years (Note: I did not believe that the name of the animal was Pete, I knew it was a dog. I just thought they all had to be named Pete).
Posted by: Aaron Fix at Mar 20, 2007 8:50:28 AM
I believed that it was incredibly difficult to drive. Making big turns and stopping was doable, but watching my parents constantly making the tiny adjustments with the steering wheel to track the lane seemed unbelievably complicated.
Posted by: Justin at Mar 20, 2007 8:59:09 AM
I believed that when people referred to Rhodes Scholars, they were actually saying "Rogue Scholars," theoreticians with leather jackets and motorcycles.
Posted by: Andrew at Mar 20, 2007 9:15:21 AM
I believed that at some point, girls turned into boys and boys turned into girls. It was a completely logical deduction, based on conversations I'd been present for, but I can't remember the evidence.
I thought things were called "chester drawers", and that if the "worst came to worst", things would still turn out ok.
Posted by: Chi at Mar 20, 2007 9:16:47 AM
That Watergate had something to do with water and a gate.
Posted by: eweininger at Mar 20, 2007 9:18:25 AM
I believed that the world was once black and white. It sort of made sense because all the old movies and TV shows I saw were black and white.
Posted by: J.C. at Mar 20, 2007 9:19:37 AM
This I believed...but am ambivalent about announcing:
I used to believe that "girls peed out of their butts". There, I said it. It’s done, its out. I can now go on with the rest of my day with that monkey off of my back.
Posted by: steveintheknow at Mar 20, 2007 9:31:39 AM
I used to believe in an all-powerful Keynesian economics. I've since
learned it takes a little of this, a little of that, etc.
Posted by: Tim at Mar 20, 2007 9:41:12 AM
I believed that all dogs were boys, and that all cats were girls.
I also believed that prima donna was actually spelled pre-Madonna. It took a semester of Italian for me to recognize the mistake.
Posted by: Alex at Mar 20, 2007 9:41:56 AM
I believed that airports were just a bureaucratic procedure; you drove there, got on the plane, flew around in circles for a few hours, touched down at a different gate of the same airport, then just drove to your destination.
Posted by: NCA at Mar 20, 2007 9:44:53 AM
Hell, I'm 26 and still find paying bills to be incredibly difficult :)
Posted by: Matt at Mar 20, 2007 9:53:51 AM
I believed for a very long time that girls never went to the bathroom.
I had a modified version of that belief; for much of my childhood I thought that only boys went, you know, Number Two.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 20, 2007 9:58:49 AM
Peter Wrote:
"I had a modified version of that belief; for much of my childhood I thought that only boys went, you know, Number Two."
I still try my best to believe that
Posted by: Joe at Mar 20, 2007 10:01:43 AM
I thought that somehow babies came directly out of women's bellies, and I was perplexed at how this could happen since there weren't any openings to allow this. Later I found out there were openings. So, I also thought that boys had something down below while girls had nothing.
I used to believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly just being created the universe, was watching over all of us, and would let some of us hang out with him after we died.
I thought computer bytes refered to some jawlike mechanism inside a computer that would clamp down on floppy disks in order to read them.
Posted by: J. at Mar 20, 2007 10:07:48 AM
As a child I read a lot, and believed much of what I read. Sure, I knew the difference between fiction and non-fiction, but I confused non-fiction with truth. I remember being fascinated by the series of books (the first was "Chariots of the Gods") by Erich Von Daniken that claimed the earth had been visited by aliens, and that certain ancient inscriptions and artifacts bore this out. Today, I am amazed that my younger self could actually read that crap without the slightest skepticism.
I also remember reading a book on "pyramid power" and believing that pyramids had all kinds of mysterious powers. I built one out of cardboard and put one of my father's dull razor blades underneath it, thinking that the pyramid would sharpen it after a few days. Needless to say, it didn't work. I now know that this is only true for crystal pyramids (ha ha -- that's a joke).
But in defense of my younger self, a lot of what can be considered "the truth" sounds pretty crazy too. Lacking years of experience in separating the wheat from the chaff, how is one to know the difference?
Posted by: pelkabo at Mar 20, 2007 10:09:42 AM
I was so convinced of the evil of drinking and driving that I'd yell at anybody in a car with a can of coke.
Posted by: awhogan at Mar 20, 2007 10:18:31 AM
I believed that Jesus was born on Christmas day and died about four months later on Good Friday. It didn't make any sense to me, but if you're already going down that road, why shouldn't he grow at a faster rate than normal people.
Posted by: the Pragmatist at Mar 20, 2007 10:19:37 AM
I believed that a red-coated "Mountie" from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would come to the candy store on my block in Brooklyn to collect all the Canadian coins kids covertly used as part of their candy money.
Posted by: Force Tube Avenue at Mar 20, 2007 10:23:56 AM
I thought the world was in black and white when my parents were young.
Posted by: Pat at Mar 20, 2007 10:36:07 AM
JC, I'm sorry I missed that you said the same thing about the world being in black and white. Glad I'm not alone!
Posted by: Pat at Mar 20, 2007 10:37:09 AM
Nuts. Someone beat me to the punch(line) on Keynes and god.
I'll sympathize with pelkabo about believing some stuff I read about, like pyramid power and astrology... but I think that's a different category. "The moon follows you" is a conclusion that children reach on their own, whereas UFOs and Bigfoot are taught to them by adults (or adult proxies like books and television) who ought to know better. Come to think of it, I guess Keynes and god fit that model too.
Beyond that, I can't recall the silly ideas I used to have. Does that mean I was well-grounded in reality as a child or does that mean I've lost touch with my childhood as an adult? I looked through the list of the most common beliefs, but everything on that list I either never believed or still do.
Posted by: eddie at Mar 20, 2007 10:43:05 AM
After the 1976 election, when Carter didn't become president the next day I thought he and Ford must have tied and agreed to split the next presidential term.
I also believed that Presidents never cried, so the whole Carter administration was a big surprise for me.
For many years after that, I believed that evidence and reason played a role in Congressional decisionmaking.
Posted by: DK at Mar 20, 2007 10:51:16 AM
I used to believe that "girls peed out of their butts".
Well that's not too strange a belief. You were only a few inches off the mark.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 20, 2007 11:02:20 AM
I used to believe that at the bank you got back the exact same bills you had deposited there originally, they were just storing them (like in your own personal drawer).
Posted by: Amanda at Mar 20, 2007 11:06:15 AM
Communism is morally superior to capitalism.
Posted by: josh at Mar 20, 2007 11:08:41 AM
That peanut butter came from the inside of sticks.
Posted by: Mike at Mar 20, 2007 11:16:21 AM
I used to believe that JFK (the man) was the moral compass by which all should be judged. Shows what you get from reading biographies of famous individuals found in the children's section.
That by raising the minimum wage all the economic problems of society would be solved.
That you just had to be able to turn to the "MTV station" -- on the radio.
I believed that Miami was its own state.
That you didn't need to check the fluids in your car - learned out the hard way when my engine seized up on a day I skipped school.
That Reese Witherspoon would go on a date with me.
That I could levitate objects with my mind if I concentrated hard enough (OK, admit it, you all still try to do this).
Posted by: AZ at Mar 20, 2007 11:16:52 AM
This isn't mine, but I think it's hilarious:
I was travelling with my Dad in the car one day when I saw him throw an apple core out the window. Thinking this was cool I threw my packet of chips out the window as well. Dad then yelled at me about how it was bad to litter, so when I told him I saw him do it, he simply said "it's different, it's biodegradeable". For years afterwards when my sister and I weren't allowed to stay up and watch TV with Mum and Dad I would tell her "It's biodegradeable" as I thought that meant something adults were allowed to do but not kids.
--Pat (from language : speaking)
Posted by: mk at Mar 20, 2007 11:35:59 AM
I believed I could see the molecules in the air if only I stared at the sun long enough.
I believed that upon puberty, my mutant powers would finally develop, though I was worried the power would probably be pretty lame in the end, like growing a dumb tail.
I believed that I could write poetry and somehow still pay my rent.
I believed I would win the world series of poker main event (that one I believed only a year ago).
I believed I would always be as miserable as I was my junior year of high school.
Posted by: jason voorhees at Mar 20, 2007 11:38:26 AM
When my teacher would say, "so and so says this or so and so says that" that she was actually telling me "sew and sew" and that she was thus speaking complete gibberish. That one I believed for years, actually.
Posted by: anon at Mar 20, 2007 11:40:14 AM
When the song goes, "get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free," I swore up and down to my friends it was actually "get your money for nothing and your checks for free." Ah, the days when I used to sit and transcribe lyrics by hand...
Posted by: anonymous at Mar 20, 2007 11:41:43 AM
I used to believe that babies were born with clothes on.
I thought that television programs were in stasis when I turned
off the TV. So, that I could turn it off, go eat, then when I
came back to the Tv after lunch, my program would be waiting
patiently for me.
I cried when Ali lost to Spinks (though I was from St. Louis!),
thinking he was truly a hero with superhuman powers. To me that
day, Evil triumphed over Good. But in this case, I was right.
Posted by: glenn at Mar 20, 2007 11:46:23 AM
My brothers also believed that it was impossible that when she was a little girl our mother had the kind of red hair that makes people stop you in the street & comment on it because the world used to be in black and white...
When my mom and a friend of hers started laughing at a pretentious inscription on a stone wall in a rather fancy neighborhood of Philadelphia--"Defense d'afficher"--and I asked her what it meant and she said "Post no bills," I thought she meant there used to be a mailbox there and you weren't allowed to post bills in it, only real letters.
Posted by: Jenny Davidson at Mar 20, 2007 11:49:17 AM
I used to believe as a child that I was living the same life again and again.
Posted by: John Goes at Mar 20, 2007 11:49:42 AM
glenn: children today will believe that about television programs, and they'll be right!
Posted by: eddie at Mar 20, 2007 11:53:36 AM
When talking about local property taxes, I thought people were saying "raidables". It turns out that it's true after all :)
I've got to confess to the "Chariots of the Gods" thing as well. Luckily I learned about logic and argument, and how to really assess these claims for myself. (Which is why I think Mythbusters is a great TV show)
Posted by: Chris Wuestefeld at Mar 20, 2007 12:07:52 PM
-That people only had sex for procreation. This isn't the product of religious indoctrination---I've been to church perhaps twice---it was a conclusion I arrived at on my own. I was very confused to learn about the existence of condoms.
-That auctions were just a contest to see who could think up the biggest number, i.e., that you don't actually have to pay what you bid.
-That strip malls were places for nudists to shop.
-That the proscription against drinking and driving applied to soft drinks.
-That 50% was a good upper limit for the income tax. I figured it was okay as long as you got to keep at least half.
-That if I couldn't see someone, he couldn't see me.
Posted by: Brandon Berg at Mar 20, 2007 12:16:08 PM
I had serious fact-fiction problems, especially when it came to material in books that appeared to be written as fact. Since I was a child in the 70s, that meant that I believed a lot of Hal Lindsay biblical prophecy as well as a lot of New Agey Atlantis / Chariot of the Gods stuff as well as in Santa Claus-- my ability to read and my interest in devouring books wildly outstripped the development of any critical judgment. I just figured the world was a complicated place where the science I read about in the encyclopedia coexisted with the Antichrist taking over the EEC and spaceships that taught peopl ehow to build pyramids.
F'r'instance, I took maps of human migration patterns at different times (e.g. out of Africa, across the Bering land bridge) and tried to work out a theory of the dispersal of Yetis and Sasquatches as evolutionary missing links along the same maps.
Also: I thought that Grease and West Side Story showed that in the 1950s people spontaneously broke into song more often; and I thought that expressions such as "olden days" and "good old days" must denote specific times, just like "The Middle Ages" or "the 20s".
Posted by: Jacob T. Levy at Mar 20, 2007 12:32:21 PM
I believed that my high school biology teacher and textbook would specifically and provably explain the origin of life on earth. Instead, I got "primordial soup, a reference to some experiment involving enzymes, and lightning or something." Very disappointing.
Also, I thought that babies were pooped out by women, and I was always afraid that a pregnant woman would accidentally flush her newborn baby down the toilet.
Also, I thought a BJ involved literal blowing.
Oh, and I believed my mom when she said that the good looking girls would really like the nice guys (niceness alone being sufficient) when I grew up.
Posted by: Steve at Mar 20, 2007 12:38:09 PM
Pragmatist, I also used to believe that Jesus was born on Christmas day and died about four months later on Good Friday!
In addition, I believed:
that urine was a strand (as opposed to a stream). I remember being surprised one day when my forefinger slipped into the stream and I suddenly realized that urine is liquid, with the same consistency as water.
that pop singers were actually espousing their owns opinions and feelings when they sang. For instance, it was hypocritical for someone to sing "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and then sing "It Must Be Him."
that women delivered children out of their mouths. (Where else could they possibly come out?)
My most embarrassing adult belief was that when someone appealed from a court ruling or verdict, he got an entirely new trial by a different court. And that Nairobi was a country.
Posted by: jp at Mar 20, 2007 12:41:42 PM
I used to believe that Detroit was in South Carolina, probably due to confusing the Detroit Tigers with the Clemson Tigers.
I figured out that Santa Claus didn't really come down the chimney. For one thing, we didn't have one. For another, the gifts were clearly items sold in the toy department of every major department store, not items handcrafted by elves at the North Pole.
No, clearly, what happened was you went to the department store Santa, who was obviously a store employee, told him what you wanted, and then men from the store came to your house Christmas eve and put the stuff under your tree.
Posted by: Grant at Mar 20, 2007 12:44:18 PM
That it didn't matter if you looked in the closet or under the bed, Dracula could come through the floor boards in a gaseous state.
That a mugger was some kind of crazy animal/teenager.
Posted by: Patinator at Mar 20, 2007 12:46:32 PM
When my mom once told me she was afraid of getting fired because she had been late to work, I had terrifying visions of her being placed in a building that was literally on fire, running around trying to get out. I was really really disturbed that the adult world worked that way.
Posted by: mk at Mar 20, 2007 1:04:03 PM
I believed that when you crossed the border and changed states or countries, the color of landscape would change, just like on full color maps.
My dad also had be believing for a while that chocolate milk can from the black / brown colored cows.
Posted by: COD at Mar 20, 2007 1:08:41 PM
That there is only one right answer for every problem.
Posted by: anne at Mar 20, 2007 1:11:34 PM
A junkie was someone who ate too much junk food.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at Mar 20, 2007 1:16:49 PM
Democratic politicians cared about working people and lived in small houses like ours.
Posted by: Tia at Mar 20, 2007 1:34:46 PM
I remember sitting on the school bus in Kindergarten on a field trip patiently explaining to my friend that all babies were born with male parts. I thought that girl’s p*nises became v*ginas by turning inside out after a year or so of age. I have no idea where I came up with this, but I believed it 100%.
I made fun of a bunch of kids in my 2nd grade class for believing in Santa Claus. We hotly debated the topic. I closed my arguments by stating that Santa Claus was about as real as a $2 bill. This turned out to be a poor strategy, since (unbeknownst to me) $2 bills did in fact exist.
Also, there were several occasions in which I confused dreams with reality. For example, I have a few childhood memories that I now realize must have been dreams. But at the time, I thought they’d really happened to me.
Posted by: Whit Stevens at Mar 20, 2007 1:40:37 PM
Many Indian movies used to have the shared theme of a villain abducting an unsuspecting female to marry her (marry, not physically force himself on her). The hero would be just late enough that the ceremony was completed, and everyone in the scene except the laughing villain would weep inconsolably. This made me think that babies were conceived due to the ceremony, which was why there was nothing the hero could do to unravel the disaster and make the woman his.
Posted by: zai at Mar 20, 2007 1:52:36 PM
I used to think there was some kind of direct hierarchy going from me, to my dad, to my dad's boss, to his boss's boss, on and on until you got to the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God.
Posted by: James at Mar 20, 2007 1:59:44 PM
Apropos of the "firing" comment, I used to believe that "prosecuted" meant the same thing as "executed". When I saw that famous ex-football player Lawrence Taylor was going to be prosecuted for drug possession, I was horrified. What was worse was that my father didn't seem that bothered that he was going to be prosecuted. And that it was only page 6 news in the sports section that this man was going to be killed.
Posted by: David at Mar 20, 2007 2:01:36 PM
I thought the taboo against swearing applied only to children (in all contexts), and that it was socially acceptable for adults to swear in pretty much any circumstance. I got this idea from father, who was a pretty jovial guy, but swore like a sailor all day and in all situations. Of course years later, I've often learned the hard way that it is highly frowned upon for adults to swear in certain contexts, most especially around children. I know better now, though often I don't remember until someone gives me a dirty look. I suppose I was actually correct in my underlying assumption, that swearing isn't actually harmful, insofar as the only consequence of my father swearing around me as a child is that I'm frequently unhesitant to swear around children.
Posted by: mtc at Mar 20, 2007 2:11:19 PM
I believed that a little man in the metal box at intersections controlled the traffic lights.
Posted by: Johnny at Mar 20, 2007 2:21:51 PM
I used to believe that all women will have children when they reach certain age.(without any one's help)
Posted by: Bala at Mar 20, 2007 2:22:46 PM
Demons, ghosts, hell, heaven, God, Jesus, America, and The Family.
Posted by: Hellbound Alleee at Mar 20, 2007 2:41:17 PM
I was pretty certain that doing things with girls who had no clothes on was really neat,
but I had no real idea how that was going to happen, so I tried to figure it out with
some (now) hilarious results. I was really clueless.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Mar 20, 2007 2:46:00 PM
If I eat fruits with pits, trees will grow out of me.
Posted by: Yan Li at Mar 20, 2007 3:01:14 PM
I used to believe that having sex caused AIDS. I didn't understand that it was a virus, and that your sex partner had to have it to pass it to you. I thought it was just a disease that spontaneously appeared in certain people who had a lot of sex. I didn't understand the whole virus thing until 9th grade. It is worth noting that my parents didn't allow me to take sex ed in 7th grade, so I was in the library doing an independent study on spiders while everyone else in my class was learning these things.
Posted by: rose at Mar 20, 2007 3:11:46 PM
Also: that "indict" and "indite" were different words, though synonyms.
Posted by: Jacob T. Levy at Mar 20, 2007 3:25:12 PM
I used to believe that a teacher who wrote P.L.O on the blackboard at school was a terrorist sympathiser.
I soon learned that P.L.O. in the educational context meant "Please Leave On".
Posted by: ak47pundit at Mar 20, 2007 3:37:51 PM
I used to believe that if I ate an apple seed, some dirt and drank some water. I would have a tree grow out of me. That was until I conducted the experiment. Alas, at 5 my first hypothesis was wrong. *sigh*
Posted by: Michael at Mar 20, 2007 3:56:34 PM
I used to believe that there must be a lot of robots making things somewhere, because I couldn't conceive of there being enough people in the world that they would be able to do all the work.
Posted by: Kevin Postlewaite at Mar 20, 2007 4:16:57 PM
I believed that parents could have children arrested for talking back or not doing chores, and that the penalty for these offenses was jail time served at juvenile hall.
Posted by: Spungen at Mar 20, 2007 5:22:41 PM
The world used to not have color. This is well evidenced by all those old television shows and pictures in black & white.
I thought it was strange that people weren't more interested in talking to me about what the transition to color was like.
I once asked my older brother if boneless chicken is made by having a karate guy reach into the chicken really fast and pull out the bones. My brother said yes. That lasted a while.
Like another commenter, I thought dogs were boys and cats were girls.
I am not sure if I knew that "chester draws" is incorrect before I read this comment thread. I hope I have a few silly beliefs still unrealized.
Posted by: Lee at Mar 20, 2007 7:10:05 PM
That performers would sing live, in person, at the radio station.
Posted by: Hovig at Mar 20, 2007 7:15:22 PM
I also thought "a BJ involved literal blowing."
Another one: that I could grow up to actually BE anything...I wanted to be a lion.
Posted by: bbbbbrrrad at Mar 20, 2007 8:17:19 PM
I once thought that euthanasia was about little kids in the Orient.
Posted by: Me at Mar 20, 2007 8:44:59 PM
My parents never drank (in front of me). Therefore, I beleived that with one sip a person would become immediately and irreversibly addicted to alcohol, and the only remedy was weeks at a hospital.
Posted by: Brent at Mar 20, 2007 9:25:10 PM
Things I believed as a child:
- That Tampa, Florida, consisted in its entirety of the small condominium complex in which my grandparents lived. Which was where we spent all our time when we went to visit our grandparents in "Tampa"
- That the electronic voice emerging from my spell-o-matic toy as a child was wired to an actual guy sitting at a computer, saying each letter that I pressed and the words that those letters spelled. I assumed this guy was located in Texas; after all, it said "Texas Instruments" right on the toy.
And, unfortunately, until I was no longer a child.
- That a person might take a Mediterranean vacation to Captain Teebs.
Posted by: LoganCircleGuy at Mar 20, 2007 9:50:46 PM
That firemen started fires; after all, they were always wherever fires happened to be.
That there was nothing on the eastern side of "the Mountains" (ie, the Sierra Nevada) since I had never seen them. I figured it was some sort of Communist plot, since that was what my uncle said about anything unexplainable.
That there was some cool place called "the West" where John Wayne lived and you could see those interesting mesas. It took me awhile to deal with the idea that "the West" was east of us.
That Red Chinese were literally red. I actually drew pictures of red-faced Asians as a kid...
Posted by: Foobarista at Mar 20, 2007 11:21:15 PM
1 - I spent the summer when I was 7 or 8 in my father's garden trying to dig a deep enough hole to reach China.
2 - Until I was 10 or 12 I thought that if a man and a woman slept together - just slept in the same bed - the woman would get pregnant. It happened on those soap operas that my mom watched. First someone would talk about sleeping together and then, a few days later, somebody would be pregnant. I also chalk it up to a poorly illustrated book about "where babies come from." As a result I wouldn't let my male cousin sleep on the other bunk bed when he came to visit. I was way too young to have a baby.
3 - I also had that confusion about how old Jesus was given his birthday was in December and he died in March/April.
4 - I believed that the Mormon Temple, on I-495 north of Washington, DC, was really DisneyWorld and my parents were cruel to never stop.
Posted by: CC at Mar 21, 2007 12:18:03 AM
I thought those guys with the red tunics at the Tower of London fed bees, because they were called Bee-Feeders. Those bees,of course, made the honey for the queen's morning toast.
Posted by: imethisguy at Mar 21, 2007 12:20:04 AM
I remember tearing kleenex after kleenex into little pieces stuffing it into my hand and squeezing it harder and harder expecting it to reform itself into a whole kleenex.
It worked for the magician on TV
Posted by: Shane Milburn at Mar 21, 2007 12:21:22 AM
I saw signs along the highway which said "Speed Radar Controlled" so I figured cars had a radar reciever which adjusted how fast they went.
I was predisposed to believe a lot of the stuff which was going around in the early 70s, so it was fortunate that when I opened up Hal Lindsey's book at random the first time it came my way, I came upon his attempt to link the "fact" that WWI marked the end of 100 years of peace to some biblical prophecy. Knowing better, I tossed the whole book aside. I also somehow failed, unlike my siblings, to absorb my parents' leftwing worldview.
I also never believed that for every drop of rain a flower grows.
Posted by: triticale at Mar 21, 2007 12:27:34 AM
That the world would end sometime in the mid-90's based on the opening sequences of "Thundar the Barbarian" and "Buck Rogers". Watching Star Trek in reruns also gave credence to some sort of world wide cataclysm before the end of the 20th century. Now that I think aobut it, they was a heck of a lot of apocalyptic messages in the maintream for a 10 year old kid in the early eighties (The Day After, Testament, the remake twilight zone episode where the woman could stop time by telling people to shut up)
Posted by: Kenny at Mar 21, 2007 4:49:12 AM
I know one person who use to think that some movies are in black and white, because they were made before color was invented - I'll let her know she's not alone. I know another person (Russian) who thought Lenin was her grandfather - and got in a fight with another girl who claimed the same.
Posted by: Anonymous at Mar 21, 2007 4:59:32 AM
I used to think that the police had the power to summarily throw handcuffed suspects into the street to be run over.
Posted by: Daniel at Mar 21, 2007 5:50:13 AM
It's good to see that others also believed that the world consisted of two colours, black and white, prior to about 1965. I remember thinking, 'how boring that must have been'!
Posted by: Shaun at Mar 21, 2007 5:51:41 AM
Like another poster, I believed, when the Carter administration came in and my father was fired, that he would be put in a big oven. I was seven, and very concerned.
I used to believe, until I was about 25, or maybe even approaching 30, that it would be easy to live up to my values.
I used to believe that adults were wise elders who could control events, make everything alright, etc. Then, after my freshman year of college, I worked in an office in DC for a summer and was around adults in a strictly adult environment for the first time (prior to that it had just been church, my parents' friends, and teachers). To learn that adults (ok, most adults) are just big kids with the same emotional problems and jealousies and social difficulties and cliques and all the rest was a big letdown that I'm still not sure I'm over.
Posted by: jsmith at Mar 21, 2007 8:39:26 AM
I thought a B.J. was a kind of hair style produced by a blowdryer.
Posted by: C at Mar 21, 2007 10:39:22 AM
I thought the visa one had to get to travel to another country was the credit card.
Posted by: Alejandro at Mar 21, 2007 11:34:11 AM
I used to believe that, because on black-and-white TV the outfield at Dodger Stadium was the same color as the playground at my elementary school, baseball parks were entirely paved with asphalt.
Posted by: Jay Hancock at Mar 21, 2007 12:21:09 PM
From Something Awful: MSPaint your illogical childhood notions.
Posted by: Swimmy at Mar 21, 2007 12:32:35 PM
As for me, I once asked my mother how people got AIDS. She responded, "By being naughty." I was baffled trying to come up with a mechanism by which particular germs could enter my system only when I disobeyed my parents.
Posted by: Swimmy at Mar 21, 2007 12:44:22 PM
I had the same beliefs about traveler's Visa meaning the credit card. I also thought that a BJ was a sandwich (I guess because of BLT's).
Posted by: Aaron Fix at Mar 21, 2007 1:15:41 PM
I used to see those a-frame construction warning signs, with the flashing lights, and think, "How do they get power to those lights?" I had this complicated idea about some guy carefully setting the sign down, and wires sprouting out the bottom of it to grow out like roots until they found a buried power line.
I remember very clearly the moment that I realized there was a simpler solution, several years later.
Posted by: Anonymous at Mar 21, 2007 1:16:56 PM
On topic, and hilarious: what they're talking about at the grownups' table.
I recall attempting to perform some demolition in the backyard of a friend's house by wrapping a whole roll of those paper caps that go in cap pistols around a fuse of some kind... Rather ineffective.
Posted by: Alex R at Mar 21, 2007 1:56:35 PM
I remember thinking that the sign in my hometown that said that speed was enforced using radar, that there were little radars put throughout the town, hidden behind walls, houses, hills, etc., and that speeding in this town would surely get you caught. I know my parents never sped through town. Unlike on the highway, where police had to have a radar, they would just follow your speeding car based on the readings from these hidden sensors.
Posted by: B. Minich at Mar 21, 2007 2:14:12 PM
eweinger,
Actually you were not so far off. The Watergate building in Washington
is in fact located over the site of what used to be a water gate. The
National Symphony used to give outdoor concerts on a platform next to it
back in the 1940s before the building was built. The actual water gate
may still be there, but concealed underground.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Mar 21, 2007 3:22:02 PM
I was also in the "I thought driving was incredibly and terrifyingly complex." The only nightmares I can remember as a child were of finding myself in the drivers seat of the family car and not knowing what to do.
Posted by: Brian Moore at Mar 21, 2007 4:29:24 PM
My family moved around the world every two years. When we landed somewhere stateside, (Texas) I was 11 years old; there was a church near my new school called "First Church of Christ." I thought it was the very first church. Ever.
Posted by: shamidiva at Mar 21, 2007 5:04:10 PM
I believed my brother when he told me that if when you sleep, if your feet are all but straight up and down, then they would stay like that the rest of my life. (e.g. pigeon toed, etc.)
Posted by: Derek at Mar 21, 2007 7:31:38 PM
Hovig,
I believed the same thing about radio being live, but in a more complicated fashion. I thought that obviously the bands didn't have time to set up and take down their equipment before the next band started playing on the radio, so they couldn't be in just one studio. so that there must be high rises, filled with musicians/bands, and that each room of the high rise had a band in it. And then, on some cue, the DJ would pick which band could play next. And then, see, *any* radio station could be connected to that band, because it was just about wires and transmitting on different frequency. But then I found out that sometimes, the same song started at different times, but OVERLAPPING times, and this I couldn't explain.
Posted by: anonymous at Mar 21, 2007 11:21:06 PM
I remember thinking the moon was following me. I remember how if I was sitting in my car seat, it was always following the car, about 10 feet away, and about the size of a grapefruit.
A friend of mine once told me he remembered that, as well, but he was terrified of the moon, because it was so obviously powerful. His solution was to run into his house, where the moon never entered. He in fact didn't understand why, if the moon could follow him anywhere, it couldn't come through the door.
Posted by: anonymous at Mar 21, 2007 11:23:06 PM
I thought inflation was some kind of natural phenomenon like gravity. I believed that well into my 20's.
Posted by: Christian G. Warden at Mar 21, 2007 11:43:57 PM
One time I missed a few days’ worth of school, probably because of a family trip or something. When I returned, everyone -- my teacher, other students, even my parents -- casually mentioned that, because of the time I missed at school, I’d have to take a “make-up test.”
This confused and terrified me. As a seven-year-old boy, I didn’t know anything about make-up. (I was sure I’d fail the test.) And why were they going to test me about make-up, of all things? And why was everyone so nonchalant about the matter?
I was sick with worry and panic for days.
Posted by: Elias at Mar 21, 2007 11:55:13 PM
I remember being on some beach when I was a little kid. Many teenagers were gathered around someone, whom I couldnt see well, and they were saying, "Wow, it's Superman!" As it turned out, they were just kidding around as one of their friends bravely picked up some big crab. But until I saw what was going on, I thought it might actually be that the real Superman was rescuing somebody on the beach, which would explain why there was such a crowd.
Posted by: J. at Mar 22, 2007 12:15:26 AM
I believed I was adopted by my parents when I was some 3 years old. I didn't remember a thing from before that, and the only logical explanation was that my parents had erased all my memories.
I also believed that there was a fairly large population of Yetis in the Himalayas, that they lived in caves and reared Yaks for a living.
Since I was born in a ceaserian section, I assumed all children came out that way. I was traumatized that they would cut open my mother's belly to take out my little brother.
When I first heard about evolution, I believed each *individual* human being evolved from a fish.
I thought a bank was a place where you stood in line every month and they gave you as much money as you needed that month. I thought the check-book was a fantastic invention.
Posted by: Like That Only at Mar 22, 2007 5:45:44 AM
I remember watching soap operas at a young age and complaining that the actors didn't know how to kiss correctly. It looked like they were trying to swallow each other's lips. I was surprised that they were such bad actors, and this made me very conscious of the wall between life and art.
I also believed until much later that the world should be fair, and that there was a way to achieve this. And that superior ability was enough to rise to the top of a profession. And that companies can fire you for being incompetent (true in theory, but in practice it's as hard to get fired for incompetence as it is to fail a college course... you pretty much have to not show up at all).
Posted by: Dave McDougall at Mar 22, 2007 9:13:12 AM
I believed :
- That the word couple (as in "a couple of things") meant two OR three, on the basis that if one meant two things, they would use the word two.
- That the belly button was an orifice, used for gay sex (I didn't have much a graphic imagination)
- That strippers were necessarily nudists
- That music on the radio was rare, only used when the people working there had a cold (my parents were into talk/sports radio)
- That the singer would get tired of singing the same song over and over if I replayed the tape too many times
- That sleeping with my head at the foot of my bed would send more blood that way and make me smarter, specifically better at maths. I think I even read that one somewhere...
Posted by: Nanani at Mar 22, 2007 9:38:00 PM
Shoot--I still believe the world _should_ be fair...
Posted by: jsmith at Mar 22, 2007 10:47:02 PM
I used to believe that kissing brought children and the cars could be made to go backwards by subtlely touching the brake and the accelerator at the same time.
Posted by: Scott Wood at Mar 23, 2007 6:41:27 AM
When I was growing up I had a younger brother and an older brother that took me and my little brother everywhere. He always used to take us to see scary movies. Well I dont know if anybody remembers the movie "Candy Man", it was so scary. Well that was one of the scariest movies that I have ever seen, it was probably becasue I was so young when I saw it and it messed me up for life. But you know in the movie that you are not supposed to go in a dark room with the lights off and say his name I rhink that it was 3 or 5 times or he would come out and get you. I have to admit, I still have not done that till this day, and I dare somebody to try it!!!!!!!! ha ha
Posted by: Kadeem Morgan at Mar 26, 2007 12:56:20 PM
大家好，我是臺灣人，從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國，環境很陌生，感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過，我是一個優秀的徵信工作者，希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站，認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 1, 2008 11:21:14 PM
