places

In my early childhood days, of which my memory is vague, the TV show The Honeymooners was still on live, and my parents were big fans of it. That is no doubt why I'd heard of Audrey Meadows, one of its stars. But I wasn't clear whether Audrey Meadows was a person, place ot thing, or whatever. I probably heard her first name more like "Autree", like that might be a kind of tree, perhaps. Meanwhile, in those same days and ongoing to times of my slightly clearer memories, my family often visited the North Carolina mountains, where one of our frequent stops was a Blue Ridge Parkway recreation area called Crabtree Meadows. I perceived that Crabtree Meadows and Audrey Meadows must be similar entities, reinforcing my probable tendency to hear Audrey as "Autree", like it were perhaps a kind of tree. I got to wondering why on most of our mountain trips we would go to Crabtree Meadows, but we never went to Audrey Meadows, which must be some kind of similar place. It wasn't until I came home from college that I realized who Audrey Meadows was and why I'd heard of her back then, for at that time my parents were again watching The Honeymooners, then in reruns.

Robert

When I was about 4 I used to think that "China" was a bad word. I guess it was becuse I heard a child at my pre-school say that if you dug and dug in the ground, there would be China. And sence the middle of the Earth was hot and I thought it was hell or some'm. To summerize that, I thought China was in the middle of the world. Well one night at dinner, my Grandapa said, "Do you know what happens when you flush the toilet?" "What?" "It goes to CHINA!" And so I slaped him really hard. "You said a bad word!!" I got a lession on China affter that.

~~Cool~~

I grew up in a suburb of Walsall, but the local accent pronounces it a lot like Warsaw - so when on the news there was talk of tanks moving on Red Square, I got really scared there was gonna be a riot outside my front foor

Sarah

When I look at the map of Mexico, I thought that "Michoacan" was a Spanish word for "Michigan" and was derived after it.

Anon

When I was about 4 years old, we had a globe that had all the countries in different colors to outline their political borders, and it also had a compass that was drawn on the Pacific Ocean next to San Francisco, California. I believed that you could see the different colors and the compass from outer space, or at least from an airplane. When I was five I thought I would finally see the compass because my mom & I flew to the Philippines from San Francisco, and we would be flying over the compass. An hour into the flight, I then had a feeling that the compass didn't exist becuase I kept staring out the airplane window the whole time and I didn't see it.

Daff

Having seen a few Diseny films, I concluded yhat America used to be a fantasy land full of beatiful princesses and magic mirrors, and states like Disenyland were still kept like they used to be. I couldn't work out why they gave it all up to become a nation of skater cowboys

Anon

I think until I was like 12 I thought there were only like 3 countries in the world: the U.S., Russia and China. The U.S. and Russia were on this side of the world, and China was on the other side. This separation was due to the well known 'fact' that if you dug a deep enough hole, you would end up on the other side other world, in China. And Russia was in there because I think our history books talked about the "Cold War" with Russia and how little kids used to have the drills in school to prepare in case of attack. I remember when I first looked at a world map, I was totally confused, I thought the map must be wrong or something, because I had this idea so entrenched in my head.
All, I can say is: Where were all the world maps in elementary school!?!?!?!?!

backward in america

When i was younger and lived in england my
dad told me that people flew around different parts of america, for some reason i imagined that everyone in america had a odd colored house and had a ariplane in there drive away.

Anonymous

When I was younger I knew about racism here in America, and I thought that it worked in reverse in Africa - like if I was a white person born over there, the black people would look down on me and treat me badly. It only seems fair, really. Of course, I also thought they didn't have cities over there, just tribes of people on the savannah. I hope they educate children better these days.

Anon

when I was about 8, me and my friends believed we could dig a hole to China, or at least South Africa (dont ask why South Africa, I really dont know)so we would spent all of our time at lunch trying to dig a hole to escape the school yard to go to China and everyday, we would start a new hole because our hole got covered up. hey, it helped pass the time.

val

I used to think we lived in America.

Amy, Britain

When i was about 5 I used to believe that Broken Hill was a broken hill.

Saad

I used to live in Canada, so I never really learned about American states until I actually moved there around the time I was 10. I thought that Washington DC was a state and that Virginia and Maryland were just cities in it.

val

When I was a child, i used to believe that i could see to the Magician Kings, on a terrace behind my house

Maria Nieves

When very young, I believed that Great Britain must be the largest country in the world, because it was actually made up of fours different countries.

Anon

being an american, i didn't know too much about britian and it's three seperate countries in one country thing. i assumed that all of britian was called england, and i also assumed anyone who called the ocuntry Britian was wrong or weird. i would always correct people who talked about british things and say, "no, it's english!!" So one day in school, when the teacher referred to britian on a map and explained the countries thing, i told her it was all england. i eventually got in a bit of trouble for talking back. go figure.

JC

I used to belive that the world was a box and when people say your going to fall off the edge i stand still for hours.

Andrew Blundell