Childhood Misconceptions

When I was a kid, I kind of lived in my own world.  I thought I knew everything, but as I grew older I realized my biggest problem was that I only halfway paid attention to the world.  So my view was a bit skewed.  Thus were born my childhood misconceptions.  Childhood misconceptions are those phrases or stories you heard as a child, but didn't understand completely.  Here are some of mine:

The Harold Angel:   I got this from the line in the song, "Hark!  The herald angel sings."  I knew about Gabriel, but who was Harold?  Were they related?  What did he do besides sing?  Why didn't the Watchtower ever talk about him?  I thought Harold was a strange name for an angel, but I figured it must be all right in heaven.

The French Underground/the work goes underground:  I thought the French hid in the sewers or under the street.  Wouldn't they smell?  Why didn't the police just pop open a manhole cover and get the drugs?  And who would climb in a sewer to buy the drugs?  When the JWs got banned and had to go underground, how did they go door to door if they were under the ground?  What if there weren't any sewers to hid in?  I didn't think there was a train underground in the Undeground Railroad, but I thought that all the slaves escaped through underground tunnels and I wondered who built the tunnels?  They must have been really long tunnels to go from the South to the North.  How did the slaveowners not know about the underground tunnels?

Guerrilla warfare:  Who gave the gorillas guns?  Why are they fighting?  Who taught the gorillas how to shoot?  And why?  I thought the all gorilla warfare would stop if people just stopped giving them guns. 

Heaven:  I thought God lived in Heaven  and it was all just above the clouds so the first time I flew in an airplane, I kept looking and looking trying to see the angels and Jesus and God.  When I didn't, my mom told me that I couldn't because they were all invisible.

Bathroom on the right:  I thought the Creedance Clearwater Revival song "Bad Moon on the Rise" was actually bathroom on the right.  (Next time you hear the song, listen and it really does sound like they say "bathroom on the right".)  Why would anyone sing about a bathroom?  And the bathroom was on the right of what?  The song made it sound like a dangerous bathroom.

And now you know the rest of the story . . . .

Cute!

Nikita

When I was little my mom and dad would go off hunting together.  I heard that newly weds also had a "Hunting Moon"... I thought they were going hunting on a full moon night so they could see.

 

When I was little watching the news, I used to wonder the same thing too. 

 

Yup, I remember circa 1978 hearing all about those gorillas in the news!

I recall when my mom first started to study with the Witnesses
in 1976 and she showed me a copy of the GREAT TEACHER book.
This was the first I ever heard of Jesus. She read me the story
of Jesus' resurrection and the book had a picture of the round
stone that was rolled away from Jesus' tomb. And seeing the big,
awesome stone, I asked her innocently, "Is this God?"

Leolaia

I used to be so worried about the 1,000 year RAIN.  I couldn't swim (still can't very well) so anytime a big storm would blow up, I was so sure it was the beginning of the 1,000 years. 

Oh here's another one:

It was 1977...my first visit to the "book study." I had one of those green bibles. Thumbing through the book, I found Paul's letter to
the "Phillipines". Or so I thought. I looked in the maps on the
inside covers (the ones with the dinosaur in the Sahara Desert --
ROAR!!!) for the Phillipines, and wondered why the United States
was an island called Cyprus. Didn't realize it wasn't a world map.

wtf was up with that dinosaur anyway?

Leolaia

I always thought that it meant the dinosaurs were washed away with the Flood.

I, too, had trouble with that Xmas carol.  I thought Hark was the name of a hairy angel..."Hark the hairy angel sings..."

It's not that my hearing was bad; it's that I was sitting in the hall outside the classroom during music because all they ever sang was holiday songs of one sort or another!

Jankyn, good ears class

 

 

Harold must have been pretty popular.  I always thought the Lord's Prayer was:

Our Father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name...