A friend of mine recently sent me an email asking me to share a childhood story. In the email she mentioned that she has a friend who is collecting childhood stories from grown ups,and illustrations from children to use in a book idea he has.
I asked her if I could include it on my blog, and ask you to help be part of this creative idea. If you are interested, you can share your story in the comment section and /or send it by email to:
Credit and mention will be given to each person's story if included. If you have any questions or need more information
Due to the overflowing amount of stories, and sayings sent by you and received by my friend she has asked me to tell you thank you and that she cannot take anymore at this time. She will give what she has to her friend and let you know what happens. Thank you!
Bao's email request…….
I have a rather strange request on behalf of a friend. We use to
spend long hours talking. One of the things I liked to hear most from
him was an idea that he had bouncing around in his head. I hear him
talk about this idea and hope he will make it a reality. So I'm going
to give him a little push. I just need one. One story to show him
what the possibility could be.
You see, his idea is a book. Someone once told him a story about what
their mother said to them to make them stop crying… "if you don't stop
crying, your intestines will burst out of you." His idea is to collect
other crazy things peoples parents have told them. How old they were,
what were the circumstance, which parent told thje story.
For those
that now have children, he would like to ask if they've ever used the
same story back on their own children.. or on other children? If this was the case,
then he would like to ask to see if the child/children would maybe draw a
picture in crayons or markers of the scene to illustrate his book.
I think that is a lovely idea, no? Would you be able to contribute? Do
you have such a story to share? Would you know of anyone that does? I
just need one. One to remind him to not let life get in the way of you
doing something that you think is a great idea, no matter how strange
it may sound to someone else. One story to show him that someone would
hold that dream for him so that he doesn't forget to dream that dream
and more importantly to act upon it.
All my best,
This is the story I sent to Bao…
One of my Mother's clever tools
of disciplining, my four brothers and I when we were children, was telling us
that the birds that sat on the telephone wires by our house were Santa's helpers.
During the year (not just in December,) she would point up to them and
say, "They are watching you! You better behave, or they will fly back
and tell Santa!" If we did something devious, she would look out the
window and say, "Oh, I see one of the birds flying away, look, there it goes to the North Pole!"
I believed her.
I remember seeing hundreds of birds lined up on the telephone wires and
wondering why soooooooooooooooo many of them seem to hang out by our house?
Being Catholic had nothing to do with guilt compared to those damn birds.
Comments
19 responses to “The Stories we Learned as Children”
Oh! I love that story. What a great idea to let the birds keep order in your house.
hahaha
a marvelous story and yes, your common friend’s idea is important. please pass my message to her friend that he has a brilliant idea which can be captured not only in a book, but in an exhibition, a play, a movie as well. please tell him that he should not doubt his idea and proceed on collecting these beautiful stories of love and childhood immediately 🙂
and i’m sharing this blog post with my online friends so that you, your friend and your friend’s friend get a lot of stories to share 🙂
a really nice idea 🙂 will think of a story myself and post !!
Do you think your friend’s friend would accept FRENCH silly stories as well ???
I’m going to mail and ask him !?!
My Mom liked to be fairly honest with us though she did keep all the wonderful holiday beliefs alive without ever letting on. My Father on the otherhand told us the most outrageous things! “Eat that crust on your bread if you want curly hair” (I did but it didn’t help!), eat that burnt toast if you want hair on your chest (to my brother!), “Don’t keep your face that way, it will freeze”, “I am going to pull this car over and leave you two on the side of the road for some other crazy person who wants awful children”,when going swimming “If you drown, don’t come back and tell me”, “The next time you roll your eyes at me they are going to fall out of your head” and our favorite of ALL time was ” If you think you are getting another dollar out of me than you had better get your head examined right now! (to which we ALWAYS stuck our heads out to be “examined”!) He thought he was scaring us but he didn’t realize until the first time we did it that he was raising two people who were going to end up with the same warped sense of humor as him!
What a fun idea- sort of a modern day version of the history of passing down beliefs and cultures through the telling of stories.
My mother wasn’t much for story-telling or making, but my German grandmother had plenty! “You’ll ruin your eyesight if you sleep with your socks on”. Her most serious threat – ” If you don’t stop that, I’m going to sell you to the rag man”. We didn’t really know what a rag man was, given there were none in Massachusetts in the 50s, but we knew it wouldn’t be good!
There were also the usual -“Don’t make that face -what if it freezes like that”?
Funny that in writing these down, it makes my grandmother sound harsh, but she wasn’t. She was very loving and I have only good memories of her. Think it was the serious German part of her that came out in these dire warnings!!
The bird/helpers story is the BEST! George Carlin did an entire routine on this topic…bet your friend could find it on youtube?
Oh that is great, your Mother had some imagination. My precious Father would actually get on the roof and make noise like Santa. No small feat in Chicago, either.
But my favorite memories are of us traveling to San Francisco to see family via car across this great country. Playing car games and saying “I still see them” while leaving Mt. Rushmore or the Redwoods….so much fun we had.
Love this idea and agree with Adee – an exhibition for certain. Your story is great. How creative your mother was with that one. I wonder if her mother used the same story. I am very glad my mother hadn’t heard it before, I would have been looking out for those birds everywhere!
I hate to be so “anal” but these are not really stories…they are “sayings”. I think the late, hilarious Geo. Carlin did a complete show on this topic. Of course, my favorite saying by my dad was “Don’t make me come back there” while he was driving our station wagon on a trip and we three kids were misbehaving while sitting together on the back seat, elbowing one another.
Your story is fabulous! I might just have to use it!
I had an eccentric great-aunt who would always tell us that if we undid our belly buttons, our legs would fall off. I tell that to my kids, too. It’s too funny not to pass on to another generation!
Ohhh,
that reminds me of our Christmas times. In Germany our familys tradition was to put up the tree on the 24th. So the doors to the livingroom would close in the morning till it was time in the evening for “Bescherung” (usually dinner and then opening of the gifts).
My mother would tell us “No peeking thru the keyhole, or you’ll have your eyesight blown out!”
Which led me to even avert my head in the next house we lived in. It had glass panels in the livingroom door, they where privacy glass, couldn’t see details but just movement…
man, did I ever rush past that door on christmas eve, keeping my head turned.
Wish that the typical “new” american home would have doors to the livingroom and even kitchen…
Good luck collecting lots of fun memories!
My grandparents, mom and dad always drank coffee. When my sisters and I asked if we could have some coffee their reply was “no, drinking coffee as a child will make your knees turn black!” The silly thing is we believed them.
Love your bird story. How inventive is that?
The only thing I can think of is my mother would say to eat my carrots as it would give me good eye sight. I hated carrots and she didn’t want me to wear glasses.
Smiling about the birds!
My mother told me that if I ate not just the soft inner part of my slice of bread, but ate the crust, too, I would have curly hair. Didn’t happen. My hair is the straightest!
I have loved that bird story since I first read it. I will save it for when I have grandchildren, it is so much better than a “lump of coal”
When I was little I used to stay with my wonderful loving grandma and grandpa sometimes who lived two hours away. I would get to sleep with grandma, which was a treat. (She always smelled so good and it kept me from being scared) Every morning when I awoke, grandma would already be up fixing breakfast. On clue (which I never noticed) – grandpa would come in the back kitchen door complaining of back ache and neck pain, and would tell me grandma made him sleep on the roof again last night!! He would look all ragged, and act tired and achy all through breakfast because he had to sleep on the roof again. I believed him totally! My grandma would snicker and kiss his bald head and say she was sorry, and I totally believed it all!
Love the bird story… we weren’t allowed to drink coffee because it would stunt our growth – that’s funny coming from my mama who was 4’10” and drank a pot of coffee every day. In fact she used to make coffee soup (crackers with coffee) to give to the babies. My hair is still stick straight (I ate the crusts); I wear glasses (I love carrots); and my face has not froze. BUT I don’t step on a crack; hold a knife or talk on the phone or take a bath during a thunderstorm; and I feed a cold and starve a fever. Thanks, Mama!!!
We always spent Christmas Eve with my grandparents. On the drive home after a lively family gathering my parents were exhausted and still had to wait for Santa. So my Daddy used to say, “Did you see that? I think I saw a flash of light in the sky!” to which my Mom would answer, “I sure did. I think it was Santa and his reindeer!” My sister and I couldn’t wait to get home and go to bed because Santa wouldn’t come while we were up. Naturally, we went to sleep quickly because of the party beforehand, Santa visited us early and my parents could get a good nights sleep.