neighbourhood

For a few years in early childhood, I thought that all places that played Muzak had a full orchestra above the ceiling. I imagined them all sitting up there playing their instruments, tucked out of sight.

Iwas 9 years old.Mother and i where going to a theathre about Edith Piafs life. A famous norwegian actor and songstress Britt Langlie was the main attraction. I was reading the newspaper finding a day. I said to my mother: We will definitlly not go on tuesday and thirsday, then an Inga Frams is playing." My mother started lauhging and tould me that Inga Frams was a shortterm for "No Show" in norwegian dialect. I was very ebbarrasd. After this stupid saying everybody asked me about Inga Frams and how she was doing...

I used to believe that all ice cream vans played the same music - some sort of universal siren for ice cream vans.

(it was the London Bells nursery rhyme... you know the one...Oranges and lemons, Ring the Bells at St. Clemens.....)

When I was little, I thought that when you put a letter in the blue mail boxes that it went directly to the post office.

I used to believe that Dick Van Dyke lived in my neighborhood. The house was very 'fifties' looking and its tall-ish owner in my 8 year old mind was the spitting image of Dick Van Dyke from the Dick Van Dyke Show. I felt like I lived in Hollywood. Now when I see this man who bears no resemblance to anyone remotely famous and probably never had I laugh to myself. My mother laughs at me.

I used to be confused by signs in stores that said "sale" or "on sale". I thought to myself, "if this stuff is 'on sale', does it mean that you can't buy all this other stuff? And if you can't, why do they have the other stuff in here anyway?"

I remember going to see the house my family was moving into. As I was sitting in the car on the way to the house, I started thinking about people moving and for sale signs and the like. I asked where the other people went who were in the house before us, and my parents told me they had moved to a new house too. I didn't know much about money at the time, so logically I concluded that people trade houses.

I could see the full coordination as one family talked to another and arranged what home to go to, and would all move on the same day into thier new place.

I used to believe that all TV came from the TV station in our town. There was a guy who lived next door named Mr. Humphrey. I thought he was the Vice President, Hubert Humphry. I thought the whole world was within a few blocks.

I used to believe that the number of digits in an address matched the economic status of the residents. My grandparents on one side had a two-digit address and were very poor. My grandparents on the other side had a three-digit address and were not so poor. We had a four-digit address and were middle-class. Without conscious thought, I simply matched the two sets of data.

When I was little , I thought the zoo and the circus were one in the same and that when my parents would take me to the zoo I thought "how come they aren't doing tricks like in the circus?"

As a child I believed that when you put letters in a mailbox, they would magically find their way to the recipient by way of underground tunnels and chutes--operated by gnomes living deep underground. I thought that the earth's core was a series of tubes that connected mailboxes!

At 5 and 6 my sister and I asked my father what the water storage towers were. Obviously we did not know they were water storage towers. He told us they were orphanages. When at 12 I met a classmate that said he was from an orphanage. I asked him why they didn’t have windows and how did he get up inside them.

i used to believe that the sign on ice cream trucks said "caution children" meant "cotton children" like cotton candy children!!! i used to be really confused by that.

Hate to disagree with Anon, but lbs stood for libs or libbies. I was never too sure which. I knew there were pounds, but you didn't use those in stores. Just when you weighed people.

I used to believe our neighbors were royalty! They were very poor by todays standards but they had running water in their house, an indoor toilet, a tub, telephone and a furnace! We had to get water from a well, heat from a wood burner in the center of the home, we had an outhouse and I took a bath in a big washtub! I'm only 45 so it wasn't that long ago! :)

My parents used to try to point out the "Golden Arches" of McDonalds - I could never see them, because I was looking for the "Golden ArchIES" (the comic strip)!