nature

My father used to tell us a story about being in a tornado in Coffeyville, Kansas when he was a boy. His father was a mailman, and my dad told us that during the tornado, his father ran home "leaping over telephone poles." Having seen the Wizard of Oz in its first release, I mixed the movie images with my father's memories, and imagined my little grandfather leaping over the tops of upright telephone poles in the middle of Kansas. Hadn't cows and men in rowboats and a witch on a bike flown through the air in the movie? This was such a strong image that it wasn't until I was about 18 that I realized, "Hey, wait a minute...those poles he jumped were lying on the ground, blown over by the tornado."

I used to believe that the ocean froze over in the winter (I grew up in Minneapolis where EVERYTHING froze over in the winter!) I thought that the waves froze in motion, so the winter sea was one giant mass of frozen waves. I believed the only reason people didn't walk to Europe in the winter was because it was too difficult to lug your luggage over all of those frozen waves.

When I was about 6 we lived in Alaska in an apartment complex. There was a small water hole in the woods behind the apartment building where the kids used to go play. One day I went down there and all the kids were staring at this one kid in the water hole as he was splashing around like he was drowning. I asked why no one would help him and was told that this was a portal the devil used and that the devil had a hold of the kid's legs. So they were all scared to help him. From that point on I thought that all open bodies of water led to the devil and was always scared he was going to grab my feet and pull me down.

I was an "army brat" moving every year or so, and until the age of 10 believed that the purpose of the world was to provide a patch-quilt of military bases being supported by the workers in the surrounding country-side, like serfs around the castles in medieval times

I used to think the stars were the angels windows. Thats how they could watch us. Sometimes I stll think that.

When I was little, we passed through an area in Florida that had just had a lot of hurricane damage. A tall building had a lot of broken windows replaced, and each new window had an "X" across it. (I still don't know why). At the time, when I asked my dad, he said the hurricane did that. He meant the hurricane broke out the windows and they had to be replaced, but I thought he meant that the hurricane had a big crayon that marked an X on each window as it passed. How stupid of me.........

My Granada once gave me a swans feather and told me if I planted it in the garden it would grow into a swan tree. I did and was very disappointed when nothing happened.

One of my favorite books was "The Lollipop Tree." In the story, a little girl planted a lollipop stick (after she'd eaten the good part), and a tree grew which bloomed real lollipops all the time.

I can't you how many lollipop sticks I planted (red ones, of course) and never got even a sprout!

This is actually my little brother`s belief: When it was raining outside, he thought it was God who took a piss :D. And when it was windy, he thought God was using a vacuumcleaner, and cleaned heaven!

I used to believe that for every crunchy leaf on the ground during fall, that if I stepped on them - each one would become a person. I think it has to do with a story I read in the 2nd grade about an old man that was always sitting on a bench with a green coat on, then one day he was gone and there was a tree where the bench had been.

I used to believe that the world was a snow globe that some little kid had in thier room in another universe and when the kid shook the snow globe it caused earthquakes and snow on earth.

When I was little I believed that trees were already completely formed under the ground.They pushed themselves out of the ground and when only the tops were showing it became a bush or hedge.

As I used to be very scared of thunder and lightning when I was little, my mum told me it was God moving his furniture around. If a particularly loud rumble of thunder occured I said it sounded like a wardrobe. If a loud clap of thunder was heard I said it sounded like he dropped it.

I used to believe that when you could see rays of sunshine coming through the clouds that they were ladders to heaven, and that if you could just find the bottom you could climb up and visit with God.

I told my brother the Moon was actually a giant's head. That two giants were battling and one lopped off the head of the other and threw it into the sky, and that's why you see a face on the Moon. He believed it for a couple hours, until our Dad interfered.

i used to believe that other countries were in the sky 'couse grown ups pointed at the see whene i asked and there was nothing else there but skies.
i remember being disappointed finding out that other countries were like mine, on the ground....