nature

I used to think that smoke stacks were really just cloud machines.

When I was younger, I always thought that the name of the ocean was floating in the water, like you see on maps. You know, ATLANTIC OCEAN, in huge letters, anchored to the sea floor, that you can see when you are flying across the oceans. I was a junior in high school when i was set straight.

When I was about five or six years old, I believed the sea was a man made phenomenon. I imagined that men actually dug the sea many years ago like that was their career.

I used to believe that if you planted any small object, it would grow into a tree that bore fruit like the "seed". The yard of my childhood home is filled with shiny board game pieces, coins, and jelly beans.

I used to think "spitting", as in, light rain, was when aliens and or angels spat down on us for the hell of it.

One time when my brother and I went to the beach, he was 7 and I was 5, he swam out really far in the ocean while I was wading in the shallow part. 20 minutes later he came back telling me about the pirates and mermaids he saw and I fully believed him [3

I used to think that those jets that leave lines in the sky were actually rockets going to space. when they were flying "down", I assumed they were crashing. I was always worried that one was going to crash into our house.

Because I lived in the tropics when I was little, I used to believe winter is only in December. In January and February it should be warm again. Imagine my surprise when I moved to Europe to study.

I used to believe that the softest bed in the world was one giant cloud that was shaped like a bed, but you had to be careful when you slept on it because if you got too comfortable you might fall through.

I used to think if you eat seeds of a fruit/vegetable and then some dirt, you could grow a tree in your stomach.

I used to believe that the dark spots on the moon were astronauts walking around. I would sit on my front porch every night and talk to them, and I would wave and say hello :)

I thought that the sound you hear when you put a seashell to your ear was a "recording" of the sea waves and that after the shell was out of the ocean for the same amount of time that it was originally in the ocean the "recording" would end and the sound would stop.

When I was little, I used to believe that the sun followed me everywhere, like a spy and moved willingly. When I got into the car I wanted this to be faster to escape from the sun and when I entered into the house looked out the window to see if it was gone ...

I used to believe that fruits were actually a hybrid of the flower of the fruit tree and of the bees/wasps that pollinated them.

I believed this because I asked my dad, an avid gardener, how grapefruit grew on our tree. Right when I asked, a bee landed inside one of the flowers. My dad pointed out the bee and told me that the bee enters the flower, which causes the grapefruit to grow, but he left out the part about the bee leaving the flower. So being an imaginative 7-year old, I concluded that because the bee never left, that must mean that it became the fruit.

For years, before I bit into any fruit, I would say a little prayer for the bees that gave up their lives to become those yummy apples, pears, and oranges that I so enjoyed.

Walking at night my 4-year-old daughter kept staring at the moon above the trees. "I think the moon's following us," she said. "Papa, you stay here." She walked about 100 feet, staring constantly at the moon.: Then she stopped and called out, "Papa, come here!" I did, while she kept gazing at the moon. Then she said,"No, it's not following us. It's only following ME!"

When I was little, I used to believe that the sun followed me everywhere, like a spy and moved willingly. When I got into the car I wanted this to be faster to escape from the sun and when I entered into the house looked out the window to see if it was gone ...