When I was little my family would spend the summer in the Catskill mountains in New York. One summer in the country when I was about 4 years old, I was riding in a car with my mom and grandma, when a bunch of kids not much older than me ran across the road in front of us. Mom said something to the effect of “those kids are wild”, Gram mentioned how dirty they were, one of them warned me not to go near them.
My little mind exploded with the idea that there are wild packs of children living in the woods. My only understanding of the word “wild” was as in wild animals, who we were not to go anywhere near, but for years I actually thought there were wild kids running through the woods, and many times I wished I could join them.
Anybody else have long-lasting childhood misinterpretations of grownup-speak?
I know what you mean, I had the same fanatasies as a kid. I ran away from home once thinking I could survive with my bow and arrow. By dinner time I was ready to pack it in.
I remember a film in school about a country, I think it was Morocco, in which the narrator said, “everyone eats off one big plate.” I thought there was just one big plate in the middle of the country and everyone in Morocco gathered together to eat all their meals off it together.
Don’t forget to finish your plate.
As a kid, I went to a Baptist private school. One day my grandma told me that they “didn’t believe in dancing”. Of course she meant that they disapproved of it, but I thought she meant they denied its existence. “But Grandma, they have to believe in it! I could show it to them.”
My brother went to gymnastics class when I was little. When he came back, he would talk about the “foam pit” (pit with chunks of styrofoam to jump into). I heard “phone pit”, and I imagined a pit full of telephones (80s telephones).
Growing up, our family used to make this trek from the bay area down to Los Angeles to attend this annual “Crystal City Picnic”. There was a huge turnout with lots of families, and races for the kids (with prizes). So it was a good time, and a bunch of my relatives would also attend.
It took a few years to realize that this picnic wasn’t always held in the same park. And I remember thinking that this Crystal City must be pretty big to have so many nice, big parks. At one point, I even remember noticing that the picnic took place in some city other than “Crystal City”, but I figured they just couldn’t book one of the CC parks that year.
It was not until MANY years later that I learned that Crystal City was the name/location of the internment camp where my mom’s family spent most of the war (Crystal City, Texas). This CC picnic was the reunion of all the families who were sent to that same camp !
Not long-lasting…and this isn’t exactly what you’re looking for (confusion over a word or phrase). But what the hell, I’ll tell the story anyway. Haven’t thought about this in quite a long time.
As a youngster, I attended a combination nursery school/summer day camp for several years, from the time I was 2 1/2 till I was 7 or so. The proprietors, whom everyone called Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bob, were two of the kindest, most wonderful people I’ve ever known. I could go on for days about the idyllic times I spent in their care and the amazing surroundings we were fortunate enough to be able to play in.
But I remember one specific occasion, probably when I’d been there no more than a couple of years at most, when they dressed all of us kids up as American Indians, complete with “war paint” on our faces, etc. (Politically incorrect, I know, but this was the 1950s!)
We were all dancing around, whooping and doing all the appropriate “Indian” stuff like we’d seen on TV, when one of the teenage camp counselors announced “We’re going to scalp Uncle Bob!” Seems to me he even had a real hatchet in his hand that must have been grabbed from the tool shed.
So everyone intensifies their Indian routine with even more whooping and hollering. I can remember going along with it, but with tears streaming down my face…because somehow, I actually thought they were serious! To this day I have this sort of pathetic image of myself dancing around, all the while my heart was in my boots because I had somehow missed the “pretend” aspect of it.
It is fascinating how the very young mind works.
My dad was a research scientist, and so as a kid I had to move around a lot as he worked at one university or another.
One day when I was 4 or so, he announced we were going somewhere, and my parents packed up the car. I was totally unclear as to where we were going, so I asked my mom. She said we were going to the US (we lived in Canada) and I asked what “US” stood for. She answered “the United States”, but I heard it as “the United Steaks”. I thought we were going to a really big barbeque! I was very excited, having been to barbeques before. As we drove for hours and hours I got more and more excited - because I figured if we had to take THAT long to get there, it must be REALLY good.
Finally, we came to a border crossing, hundreds of cars were moving through it, I thought for SURE we were almost there! We get through and - kept driving.
I was unnerved. I asked if we were “at the US”. My mom told me we were. I asked “where is the barbeque?” My mom asked “what?”
THAT lead to one giant crying fit, when I realized there was no party, no barbeque, and no “steaks”. It took some time for my mom to figure out what the hell I was thinking!
Well I think that they should throw a BBQ once a year for everyone that crosses into the US! You got ripped off!
I was just shy of 9 when Smokey and the Bandit came to the theaters. I thought the one thing he took his hat off for was the barber.
Dcord, tell me about it. The church we went to up in Peeksville when I was little was built by Indians, as I was told, to atone for a massacre of missionaries. The whole inside was filled with totem poles, each representing a victim.
My grand-Pop’s stories of how the Indians turned his hair white didn’t help much.