neighbourhood: in the street

When I was eight, my sister tried convincing me there were lions in the streets and the field behind my house. Now I know that she was just trying to get me away from her and her friends when they were outside, but I believed her. I didn't leave the yard alone until I was eleven, and even then I took a baseball bat.

I thought that the postman sits inside the postbox and waits with his letter bag and packed lunch waiting for enough letters to be posted through and when his bag got full he'd call the other postman to let him out and then they'd swap over.

Unable to Imagine how they built anything that high, and misinformed by my Dad, I used to think tall brick chimneys were 'grown' rather than built - simplay lay 3 courses and water regularly.

When I was growing up across from my house there was this old run-down building. I used to think that that building was where they invented words. I thought that they had meetings every Thursday night, and the members consisted of a group of 30 old men that raised their hands when they thought of a new word.

I used to believe that war memorials were 'warmer morials', and they were meeting places outside where you stood around to keep warm with your friends on a particularly cold Winter's day

My mom told me the man who lived on the corner was robbed blind while mowing the lawn. I felt horrible because who would rob a blind man, but then I was confused about how a blind man could mow the lawn.

When I was little, I always thought handicapped parking places were wheelchair parking only--I actually thought people would park their wheelchairs there, then get up and walk into the building. I could never understand why those spots were never used like that.

i asked my dad who turned on the street lights at night and he told me it was the man at parramatta. all through my childhood i believed that a man sitting in a room at parramatta would turn on all the light switches every night.

I used to believe that inhaling the smell of tar from roadworks was good for you, my mother used to take me around roadworks because she said it cleared your airways out!!

When I was little I thought that a pair of smoke stacks (which were part of a factory a few miles away) was actually Cinderella's castle. I could never quite understand why my parents would never take me there if we were so close.

As a kid, I thought "No Outlet" signs meant the houses past that point didn't have any electrical outlets.

When I was five, I asked my mum how the street lamps came on on their own. My mum looked at me then she looked up at a lamp and said "You see those little knobs on the top of each one, well, as it's getting dark the birds come along and peck those knobs which are the light switches". I believed the seagulls turned on all street lamps until I was nearly twelve, when I asked "how do the birds know when to turn the lights off again?" As soon as I said it the penny dropped! She'll never let me forget it.

I used to believe that the street lights around the country were all operated on one switch, and that when dusk came, Princess Diana would flick the switch and make all the street lights come on.

When I was little, my mother and I regularly went on holidays by train. We had to change trains at the next big station and often we had to wait quite some time, which we usually did in the tunnel below the platforms. My mother stayed with the luggage while I wandered around looking at the shops nearby. When I came too close to the back exit of the tunnel, my mother called me back. All I ever saw out there was a grey, bleak square, so I asked my mother what was there. She casually said “nothing“, meaning nothing interesting, but I thought there was literally NOTHING, just a grey mist that would make me disappear from existence if I came too close. For years I was afraid to go even near the fruit shop that was near this exit. First time I ever stepped out there was when I went to university in this town because the bus stop was one of the things that actually were out there. Felt a little weird at first but I got over it. Probanly helped that the fruit shop had turned into a bakery by then.

I used to know a girl at school who'd been told when she was very young that cats eyes in the road were gnomes under the road with torches who had to run along and shine their torches through the holes as you drive along.

You know the stickers on mailboxes that say "Strictly no leaflets"? I used to believe that meant they didn't want little leaves in their yard, so I'd pick up a bunch off the footpath, and throw them over the fence, then walk off quickly!! I could also never work out why they didn't get rid of all the leaves already in their yard :-)