the law: criminals

When I first started coming home from school to an empty house, I would open the door and yell 'if anyone is in here, my eyes are closed, run out quick and I won't see you' because naturally, if a burglar thought I'd seen him, he'd kill me.

I used to be afraid that someone was going to break into my house and shoot or stab me. So, naturally, I kept the covers over my head at night because everyone knows that pillows and blankets block bullets and knives!

i used to hear people say "that guy looks familiar" and i thought they said "for Miliar", thinking there was a guy named Miliar that was on the run and certain people were hired to look for him. so these people would be looking for a guy named Miliar. i was very young.

I thought that when someone was called an "ex-con," I didn't know that meant "ex-convict." I thought it meant that the person was an "ex-con artist." I thought he or she used to con people out of money, but not anymore.

My Granny once told me that if I was scared of robbers coming in at night to sleep with a knife under my pillow.
So every night I made sure my trusty butter knife was under the pillow. I thought it was a superstition thing that worked. When I grew up I noticed Granny slept with a sharp knife under HER pillow.

With a child's understanding of time... I used to think my dad was a convict settler. I'd heard about the first white Australians who'd come to the country as prisoners from England (some 200 years ago). I knew my dad came from England too when he was younger, so it just seemed logical that he was one of them.

I used to want to be a con artist,I thought you could actually go to college to be one,and whenever someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up,I replied "A con artist."

When I was about 4 I would worry about robbers breaking into our house, but only till midnight. Because after midnight the witches would come out and no robber would be out when the witches were out.

I grew up in a very rural area, and there were signs posted on the neighbor's fenced property stating "No Trespassers - Violators will be Prosecuted". I used to think it meant that the penalty was death.

I used to believe…

that when a police officer was arresting a criminal and read them their rights, when they said anything can and will be used against you.. I thought that if you said crabs or alligators or spiders... they could use them to torture you on the witness stand.

When i was little I lived in an area where there were some kidnappings, and i was the neighborhood know it all. Well my parents told me that this kidnapping was happening and that the man drove a white van, so every time i saw a white van (the one w/o windows, you know the ones) I would hide, no matter where it was, especially under cars. Do you know how many clothes i ruined! I thought that all white vans would take me away and i would never see my family again.

We had a juvenile detention center right down the road from my house, and my father used to say that they'd send me there if I was bad. I'm not sure if I ever wholly believed this, but it sure looked like a cold and scary place. I really didn't like the idea.

I used to believe that burglars came into our house every night to kill us, and the only thing that protected me from them was pulling the covers all the way over my head. This used to get very hot, so I decided that they could not kill me if just my head was showing.

I used to believe when a criminal got out of jail and was on probation that he had to go see an officer (or counsilor) once a week AND pass drug tests - or go back to jail. My sister's ex-boyfriend proved the movies and tv shows lied.

This is from the good old times when i was young and innocent and didn't know about french kissing - I always wondered about that strange kind of kisses the people on screen enjoyed and my mother told me it was illegal to kiss each other the "real" (child safe) way on stage and so they did id that way.

My stepfather told us a story of a guy named STUBS in Carbon Cliff in IL. At the Mansor Woods boy cubs scout camp. He would tell us that when he was a boy at the camp they were playing in the woods and a little boy got lost when they found him he was tied to a tree with both legs cut off. He said that the kid maid cruches and went around killing and destroying things in and around Carbon Cliff. Which yes the camp burned down shortly after and they said that there was a shadow of someone on chruches seen running away from the camp. Still to this day I hate that Camp site which is now a apartment complex Called Mansor Woods