in the street

When I was little I was terrified of the garbage truck. I believed if it saw me the big long arm that grabbed the trash can was going to come and grab me and throw me away!

Janae

I played Mario Bros with my brother a lot when I was younger.I believed that you could turn video games into real life if you tried hard enough. I would always stand on manholes and concentrate my hardest to get beamed down so I could get extra coins or find the hidden passageway. I even convinced my best friend it was true.

Meg

I used to believe a sign "MOD Hostel" near a building where I lived was a place for bad "mods" opposed to "rockers". It wasn't until I was a bit older the penny dropped and I realised it was a place for people to sleep in the Ministry of Defence.

John Cooper

When I was young I thought that VOTING was actually BOATING. One November I went with my mom to vote, and I was being bad during the ride over, so she threatened to leave me outside. "But Mom, who is going to watch and make sure I don't fall in!"

Kat

I used to believe that Dick Van Dyke lived in my neighborhood. The house was very 'fifties' looking and its tall-ish owner in my 8 year old mind was the spitting image of Dick Van Dyke from the Dick Van Dyke Show. I felt like I lived in Hollywood. Now when I see this man who bears no resemblance to anyone remotely famous and probably never had I laugh to myself. My mother laughs at me.

ve

When I was little I used to think that the crackes in the roads were the lines in a jigsaw puzzle, and our houses and cars were Jesus' toys and he was moving us all around on the puzzle.

Shannon

I used to think that my grans house was just over the hill i could see from my bedroom window. I couldnt understand when we visited that it took so long to get there. I asked my dad why he didnt just drive over the hill, and he said it was because the farmer would get mad. I walked up there with a friend years later and was disappointed to see miles and miles of fields!

Pauliboy

I used to believe that the storm water pipe, that disappeared under the ground, at the end of our road was a tunnel to the devil and hell.

Anon

I used to believe that Pine Street, the main thoroughfare that ran behind our house, went all the way around the world. When we moved when I was 13, we moved east about 20 miles along the same road and even though I knew it by then it didn't go all the way around the world, I was still disappointed when my mom took us to the end of the street a few miles past our house.

Rose

I used to pass this sign for a warehouse that was "Open to the Public". Every time I saw it, I got mad because I thought they were discriminating against Catholics by only letting the "Public" in.

Anon

when i was young i used to believe my shadow was a person following me id sit and cry for hours and stamp on it shoutin 'go away' i had a few funny looks from passers by which i cudnt understand why they thout it was funny iwas very scared of this 'stalker haha dumb

gab

When I was little I thought there were little men in the street lights that sat there all day and when night came they turned the light on.

Nate

I thought that the tin man from the Wizard of Oz lived in the lamposts on my street, and that if I walked near it he would jump out and grab me!

Anon

When I was about 6 or 7, the owner of the neighboring farm was named "Ardell". I thought that he was "our dell", and that probably lots of people had their dells. I think this belief was related to the children's song "The farmer in the dell".

Anon

I was at my friend Zala's (yes, that really is her name) house when I was little, and she was allowed to ride her bike in the street because it was a 'dead end'. I thought that meant you could take a gun and shoot the street and it would be dead.

River

When I was 3 or 4, I used to be afraid of cows. One day I moved to a different town and there was a river behind the house. My mom was afraid that I'd go wander off to the river and fall in so in order to keep me away from the river, she told me that the cows had a house down there (an old dog house in the water)and that I couldn't go down there.

Anon

Driving down the road one day, I pointed up at a giant crane at a construction site and asked my mom what it was for.
She must have thought I was looking at something else, because she mentioned something about it helping her lease the car.
For years I thought that cranes would go and pick cars out for you for a lease...

Anna

Directly across the street from my home was a very old house that was abandoned. Trees and things had grown up around it, and it looked creepy. During the summer, lightening bugs would fly in the house and it would light up the rooms of the house. I would sit and stare at the house looking for any possible movement of a ghost or something. When I got much older (and braver) I went into the house to get over my fear of it.

Michelle Harrell

I used to believe that little trapped slave kids lived inside streetlights and operated them, because I thought I heard one "crying out to me" one time when I was walking by.

Anon

My dad and my nephew play this game called "Gotcha" where they try to fool each other with things and then say, after they've had enough fun, "Gotcha!" My dad told my nephew that the BB & T bank (British Banking and Trust) was Bacon Bits & Tomatos Bank because that was the guy that owned the banks favorite food but that they named it BB & T because noone would bank at a place called Bacon Bits & Tomatos. My nephew believed my dad for months and even told teachers and other kids at school the stupid story. Finally, I told dad what my nephew was saying in public and that he sounded stupid and that he needed to say "Gotcha". Finally, dad did.

Just Me