Funny Things You Thought Were True When You Were a Kid

[Jill]

The song thread here has me thinking

What were some of the silly things you thought were true when you were a kid? Or was I just especially easy to fool?

• We live near a lot of Civil War battlefields, and a lot of them are ssurroundedby split rail fences. I asked Dad what those fences were for, and he told me it was so the soldiers stayed "in bounds" (like for football). BBelievedit for years!
  
• You know the buildings up on stilts near quarries? They have chutes coming down them. I still don't know what they're really for, but I no longer bbelievethat they are chicken cleaning factors, like my dad told me, and that after the feathers are pulled off, the chickens go down the chutes naked.
  
• My Uncle Buddy, dad's brother, was a ssheriff He told me it was illegal to swallow your gum and tell me, would a policeman lie?
  
• When I was really young, I thought black people just baked longer than white people (like cookies).
  
• That those rolly polly (potato?) bugs could rust in water, and I know I killed plenty trying to prove it.
  
• Every clear night in summer held the ppossibilityof spotting a UFO as it flew over our house. My friends and I watched each night and you know, we thought we saw quite a few!
  

There's probably more, but those are the ones I can remember now. What about you all? What are some of the things you were sure you had the scoop on when you were a kid but later realized you had it a little bit off?

 

[Carolyn R]

LOL, cute topic Jill. I was mortified when my father had a cup of soda or coffee while in the driver's seat. I always thought we would get pulled over. (drinking and driving)

When I heard my older brothers say a friend was beating their car and dropped their transmission, I really thought the transmission fell out of the bottom of the car in a parking lot.

The first time I had the chance to use a " Speak and Spell" ( remember those gems) I kept saying to it, " okay, I am done spelling the word, is it right? " didn't realize one must hit the enter key. Looking back it was a step above a calculator

I thought senile meant an old person with bad eyesight.

There is an old mill down the road that dates back to the 1700's, it is an amazing place. The mill house is complete with a trap door and a secret room to hide from Indian raids.

My aunt would tell us to stay away from the mill pond when adults weren't around because Jenny Green Teeth would get us. She was a horrid blobby creature that was covered in green slime and algae. She would pull you in if you got near the edge of the water.

There was a giant tree struck by lightening at the mill also. It was huge and hollowed out, an adult could easily fit inside, we were told fairies lived there.

I passed this onto my kids, one day when my daughter was small, she said "it's really cold out, I bet the fairies would like it if we left some hot coco and a snack. I snuck back down after she left it. I was careful to leave a little coco in the cup as well as some apple and grapes with tiny bite marks. She remembers it to this day, she is 15 now,

Oh, and I must share that when my brother needed an athletic support for baseball when he was in elementery school, he told my mother he needed a cup. So she came home from the store with a plastic cup. Poor kid had to spell it out for her, so it's not just kids that have some funny misunderstandings.

I am sure more will come to me.

 

[Bassett]

My Dad used to tell us to keep our mouth shut when an airplane flew over. Because you never knew when they were going to empty their toilets. Bless his soul. He's been gone 32 years and I STILL miss him.

 

[MindyLee]

My dad told us kids that we should never feed the dogs bubble gum...

Cause if they farted a bubble, they would float away.

 

[jleonard]

My dad always said the rumble strips on the side of the road were ghosts. Took me years to realize where the sound really came from! Funny how so many of these misconceptions were created by fathers!

 

[WendyJ]

My mom told my sister and I when we were little that "if you can put salt on a bird's tail, you can catch it". We spent many, many hours that summer in the woods, trying to sprinkle bird tails! The joke ended up also on my mom, though, as every time she looked for salt at the house, it was gone.

 

[Sue_C.]

OMG WendyJ...that is the very same thing my Mom told me. she would hand me the shaker and off I would go... she still laughs and says she was not lying...says that if you can get close enough to sprinkle the tail, you could catch it. LOL!

 

[WendyJ]

Sue C.

Wow, our moms must have had a similar sense of humor.

I, of course, tried it with my kids when they were small and they could have cared less. I was pretty bummed!

Wendy

 

[Riverrose28]

My Mom told me that the pregnant lady accross the street mistakenly ate a watermellen seed and that was why here belly was swollen. She also told me that the stork brought babies, funny thing is, cartoons confirmed it.

 

[Hosscrazy]

Vampires were absolutely 100% without a doubt REAL!!!!

:nervous

My older brother convinced me of that...

Liz N.

 

[Sonya]

Manure for sale sign on a riding stable barn....I thought 'manure' was a breed of horse...lol. I pronounced man ure.

 

[KanoasDestiny]

I watched John Carpenter's The Fog when I was really little. After that I was paranoid that there were evil ghosts in the fog. Even to this day, the fog makes me uneasy. Lol.

 

[Jill]

These posts are fun! Keep them coming

 

[REO]

When I was a little kid my father took me for a ride in a VW bug (mind you, it was the 70's! IE: Herbie) We stopped for gas and he said hey look, he's thirsty! And the little door to the gas cap opened by itself. (he was working a lever) So each time we stopped for gas I'd watch the thing open. But that was just that one day. I decided it was a trick and made my father confess! I guess after finding out that grown ups were Santa when I was only 3-4 made me cynical at a young age! LOL