in the street

In the city we grew up in, there is a door the seemingly leads nowhere. It is on a hill, going up a street. Above it is just a parking lot, or it was when we were kids. The door was just there with concrete leading to the side of the hill. We always believed the door was the entryway to Hell, and no adult ever would tell us it's real purpose. Still is spooky to see it there, in 2005, leading "nowhere".

Wings

When I was little, my grandfather told me that all the left shoes travelled in a different lorry to the right shoes, so that if there was an accident people couldn't steal pairs of shoes. This was enforced by the fact that we always seemed to see Hush Puppy lorries travelling in twos.

Janey

My mother was a little girl in Brazil in the early 1960's. Whenever my mother would see a homeless person carrying a bag, her mother would tell her that those people kidnapped children and they would carry the children in the bags.
As a result, my mother was horrified and never got near homeless people with bags. Now she feels terrible and knows they were just carrying around their belongings.

Claudia

My dad is over six foot high so when I was about four my walking pace couldnt keep up with him. In a bid to hurry me along he told me that street lights would zap me like the lasers in Star Trek if I stayed under them for too long. Soon after at night I could be seen legging it as fast as I could and leaping past any blinking streetlights as I thought they were just getting ready to zap!

Bigjayket

I used to be in a girl guides troop which had a hut behind a petrol station . Because the petrol station had a sign outside with BP written on it i thought the BP sign outside petrol stations stood for Baden-Powell.

Heather

i thought lease was some rich famous lady that everyone loved since i saw all these signs on buildings that said *for lease*
i thought she was taking over the world or something, buying all those stores and stuff

reh

When I was about 7, I thought the red front doors of my sister's high school meant that firetrucks were stored inside, and the firetrucks would come down the 20 or so steps of the building anytime there was a fire. I proudly told this to a visitor we were showing around town and my entire family stared at me like I was a total loon.

Still confused by buildings

I believed that the sparks from the fireworks on the 4th of July landed in the street and that's what painted the lines in the road

Blake

For some reason unknown to me, whenever I would walk down the street I would make sure that whoever I was walking with (usually my dad), would stay on the same sides of objects as me, such as signposts and mailboxes, I was convinced that if we passed such objects on different sides, I would dissapear from on the other side to my dad and go into another world exactly like ours so I would never know the difference.

Anon

When I was little i thought that little elves lived in the street lights and would light the light with a match at night.

Hayley

I used to believe the Pass With Care signs on the road meant that you should be very careful if you went into the woods, field, or whatever it happened to be there on the side of the road...

niki

I used to think that all the cars in a lane were all following one particular car. When asking my friends about it, one of them replied 'it's my car they're following'. And I was so amazed and jealous that my car was not the leader.

Vee

There is a block of flats on the way up to my dad's house, it had a very steep alley that led down to a car park under the flats. I used to think that that's where "the black market" was!

Ela

When the mosquito truck comes through our neighborhood, my son and I dash inside. We did this for several years before my son realized the truck was killing mosquitos -- not spitting them out at us.

Kevin Hogencamp

I lived in a town where there were ditches at the side of every road. On the way to and from school, sometimes kids would fall into these ditches and get soaked. Cars would have accidents and crash into the ditches too. I used to believe that, before you became an adult, you would at least ONCE fall into the ditch. Some sort of rite of passage or something. And I truly dreaded when it would be 'my turn' to fall into the ditch.

I never did fall into the ditch. But in my dreams, 25 years later, I still have nightmares about death and ditches.

momcat

i used to believe anyone who didn't live in my neighborhood was rich.

Spencer

I used to believe that the Fire Station was where all fires occurred.

Anon

I believed for many years if I was caught taking the shortcut to school I would be glued to the ground. I was in grade one when the older kid told me this. I thought I would turn into a statue with birds nesting on my shoulders.

Anon

On our street there was a manhole with a small hole in it. We believed that the devil lived down there and every once in a while we would drop a pebble down there and listen hard to see if we could hear him howl.

Anon

I used to believe there was quicksand at the top of my street. I saw a movie once where a man was "swallowed" by quicksand and the hat he had been wearing was left on top. The quicksand in the movie looked like mud, so when I saw a huge muddy area up the street, I thought for sure it was quicksand!

Anon