the past

I was 6 when the Chernobil reactor blew. I remember watching the news, and they of course refered to to it as 'The Plant'. For about a year I believed that there was this humongous green plant growing in Russia, and poisening everyone that came near.

When my children were younger they couldn't understand how black and white films were made. I told them "colour" wasn't invented 'til the 1970s. For years they believed that colour in real life was a fairly recent invention. ie. "When I was a little girl, grass was grey, not green!"

As it happened, my Uncle Peter had injured his thumb in some long-ago workshop incident, but when I asked my dad the reason it was so short I got a different story: he casually explained that when you were good Santa brought you toys, but when you were bad he ground up your thumbs!

Well, I didn’t believe that for a second. I did, however, believe for some reason that Walter Cronkite was George Washington. He just looks that trustworthy, I guess.

I used to believe that the Guerrilla fighters in Rhodesia in the 1970’s where real Gorillas. I became very confused when the pictures shown on the TV News always showed black men with guns jumping out of trucks and not Gorillas.

I think I must have watched the “Planet of the Apes” too much on TV.

When I was small
My father told me about his aunt
Who foretold the event of the Great War
(It was World War I)

She said that one night,
She saw soldiers marching across the
moon.
That story never failed to give me the shivers.

When I was around 7 years old (1961 or 62), we used to have 'air aid rills' at school, where we lined up in the hallway, in alphabetical order, with cardboard signs hanging by strings around our necks. We had to squat down and fold over our legs, with the sign protected by our bodies. Some of the kids told me that we were going to be bombed and the signs were so they could identify our bodies. I was really upset until my mother explained that this is America and it is against the law to bomb America.

I grew up during Vietnam; when I listened to the news reports about "armed guerillas" I thought there were literally armed GORILLAS running around the forest with M16s. I couldn't imagine what in the world they were fighting about. I also thought that the black paint that football and baseball players put under their eyes were actual black eyes, and that it must be an awfully rough game if EVERYBODY had black eyes. Finally, I was grown before I realized that a fiddle and a violin are the same thing (and I grew up in Nashville, TN!)

I used to believe that a war was when men in colonial outfits would tell their enemies to meet them at an area with green grass and a metal fence surrounding the area like in many playgrounds. They would then all meet there. There, the good guys and their enemies would sword fight and the winners of the war were the ones that won the sword fight.

In the late 1980s, I learned in school that President Reagan was nearly assassinated in 1981. I asked my father later that day, "Did you know that the President was shot?"
I should have realized that when someone tries to kill the President, even when it is a failed assassination attempt, it is a major news story that people will remember for years. I should have asked him, "What was it like after the President was shot?"

I used to think that everything in the world was black and white before the fifties. I think that this was because all the films and tv from before then was black and white.

While I was growing up, my mother used to show me pictures of herself as a child and tell me wonderful stories.I really thought that there was no color in the old days because the pictures were all in black and white. I remember seriously pondering thoughts about when color came into our lives.

When I was 7 I was obsessed with all things military. So when my dad told me we were going to Germany for a holiday I became hysterical. I just couldn't grasp that WW2 had ended. I had nightmares for weeks. We ended up going to Cornwall that year.

When I used to hear on the news about soldiers fighting in wars against guerillas, I pictured hoards of 'Planet of the Apes'-style Gorrilas beating their chests and pumelling soldiers who had run out of ammo, dreading the day these huge monkeys might get over to England and pummel me

i used to believe that gorilla warfare meat that real gorillas where fighting in the place of people.
like in the american revolution when the americans attacked the brits in the forest.

is war real???

I used to believe that before I was born the world was in black and white. I think this belief was fostered by the fact that the pictures I saw of myself were always in color, while the pictures I saw of my parents (taken before I was born) were always in black and white. Even during my early childhood the world was a dingy orange it seems:-) I still have a hard time picturing my parents as little kids "in color" ... they always come into my mind in black and white. 

When I was a child (up to about four years old) I used to believe when my parents were growing up, EVERYTHING was black and white, because all the old film and pictures I'd seen from back then were black and white.

When I was a kid I was convinced that the entire world was in black and white, when my parents were young, and that someone along the way invented colour and painted the world with it. I suppose it came from seeing all the old photographs. My mom had quite a laugh when I told her.

I used to believe that before color photography and television were invented, the world and the people in it were black and white colored. When i was born in 1978, I just happened to be a part of the new Colored people generation haha.