A childhood belief about excursions

When I was little, I kept hearing about skyscrapers for some reason...and I couldn't figure out what they were. I couldn't figure out why there was a need to scrape the sky... maybe something like street cleaning trucks that I saw in illustrations in books? (We lived in a very small town, I was also sidewalk deprived.) So, I pictured some kind of rig extending up into the sky with a scratchy metal brush.... until the night I dreamed about the Sky Scraper... a nasty man like the Sand Man... in a hot air balloon, coming to throw sand in my eyes! Quite a nightmare... after that, I no longer worried about sky scrapers... too intense to contemplate! Not quite sure what section to put this in so I'll pick....This One! I also used to believe that touching a telephone or power pole would give you polio.