As a kid you think many strange things. What are some of the oddities you thought? Or your kids/grandkids/nieces/nephews...

For me:

1) At about 4 or 5 I asked my dad if space was out my window, and he said it was. I can remember thinking how cool it was that they gave ME the window with outer space! I would go to sleep wondering what Jupiter was doing and straining to see it.

2) We had this library book once or twice...

3) We went occasionally to the University of Michigan public telescope nights. Usually the first Tuesday afte a New Moon. Don't ask why I remember, the telescope moved when I was 5 or 6 (maybe 9?) young in any case. Anyway, the main scope was pretty decent size. That scope gave me my first view of Saturn. When the attendant asked me what I saw, I replied "it looks like a tennis ball stuck in a frisbee". That was, and still is, the first thing I think of when I think space.

4) Shoemaker-Levy. Got to see it crash into Jupiter at our local library. They used to hold regular star parties until interest died out . Those were some cool memories and are likely directly responsible for my continuing interest, low key as it may be.

5) Dad took me to see the guys who worked with Galileo. They spoke/QandA at the University of Michigan one night. It was cool to watch the videos, listen to the speech, and even got to talk to them after for about 5 minutes.

Done!

Wait.

6) Sorry, about the same time (5th.6th grade) as #5 I got taken out of school one morning to see an astronaut speak. During the Q and A I asked whether she could see anything other than the wall of China from space. She said no, she didn't see that, but she could see the border between Israel and Palestine due to the use of goats verse no goats and the drastic difference in wild vegetation. That was really cool! Plus, that question got into the news that night/next morning.

*I was homeschooled in 6th grade, so it was more likely the second, but I also remember showing my teacher the news clipping... :S

Anyway. Those are some of my stories on space and my understanding of it as a child. Share yours! Funny, odd, or formative!

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None to speak of

Apt description...

When I was VERY young, my dad (yes at one time he existed) had taken me outside at night and carfully pointed out the northern hemisphere constellations- by name- and named many of the stars (Like betelguese, castor, pollox ) within them.

Orion always stood out in my mind.

I remember my sister came out and said "Whenever I look at the stars- I feel tiny and insignificant."

That, too, stuck in my mind.

Many years ago- as I was walking late at night (as I am wont to do...) and looking at the sky... I was thinking about that.

If a star is on a collision course with another star- it cannot move out of the way by it's own will. It is doomed to its path. What I can do out of the simplest instinct- a star cannot do by it's sheerest force of will.

Whenever I look at the stars- I feel very nothing like my sister described. I have the power of choice- and that makes me more powerful than all the stars in the sky.

True. But when I look at the stars, I see hints of places and worlds which I will never visit, and places that will never know I existed, but will continue to exist for long after I'm gone. I think that's what contributes to the small and insignificant feeling...although it's not always a bad feeling. I cannot put into words the full effect of a dark night littered with countless hints of worlds far beyond our own.

WRT the OP, I think the "funniest" thing I thought as a kid, and still think, is the descrepancy when thinking about the distance from here to the moon. Some times I look up and think "Isn't it wonderful that the moon is so close we get such a good view of it?", whereas other times I picture the Astronauts up there and think "Isn't it amazing how far they traveled, and how far from home they must have felt?"

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

When I was very young, I thought children were born via the mother's navel. It was later I learned the rascals had another escape route.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Like many things in life, the In was also the Out door.

I think I have told everyone this at this point- but anyway- again for some of you...

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up and so I practiced holding my breath because there is no air in space.

Yes- I thought astronauts didn't breath the whole time. Like Dolphins.

I remember looking up at the stars and thinking, "I want to GO there!"

Come to think of it, I still do that.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

When I was very young, before my brothers were born, many of my mother's friends had swimming pools and she would take me to go swimming there about seven times a summer. The other days, I swam in the ocean. By a strange co-incidence, for the first two summers she did this, every day we went to a swimming pool, there was a thunderstorm. This scared the bejeepers out of me. Finally, one day, my mother asked me if I wanted to go swimming and so-and-so's house.
"No, mommy."
"Why not, Kai?"
"Because thunderstorms scare me."
"What?"
"Doesn't swimming in a swimming pool cause thunderstorms?" I asked in my little three-year-old voice.

Technically, I'm still a kid, and I have said something similar:
"Although most of us don't need the stars for navigation or calendars anymore, they still serve an important purpose. We can always look up at them and be reminded of things greater than ourselves and our planet."

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Technically I'm still a kid too.
At least when baby boy inspires it

The rest of the time I'm a Grumpy Mean Old Man.

Back in the 50's I used to stash food - crackers, a bottle of Coke - under my bed, so if there was a nuclear attack I could get under the bed to be safe and have something to eat.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

I used to keep a backpack of canned goods in my closet for the same reason.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

We should start a group here. The Conelrad Geezers.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

As long as I get to be "the cute one".

But I may not be geezerish enough yet to join, as my nuclear fears were in the 70s and 80s.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I stashed a mask, a toy bow and arrows and a leotard inside a closet so I would have a costume to wear in case I ever got super powers.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

I can't think or remember of the silly things I did or say about space when I was a kid , but I remember my son said while we were out one weekend night and it's a full moon.

He was so amazed that its his first time to see the moon in its full shape and size, and then he said while looking at it " Mom , I will buy that moon."

I chuckled when he said that , and I said , "when you're big and have enough money to buy the moon" , and then we laugh at each other.

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Jean
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einsteiin

Last Saturday, my wife and I took two of our grandchildred to visit some elderly friends of ours. These friends have a cat that decided she didn't want to be around a 3 year old girl and an 18 month old boy, so she retreated under a table. My granddaughter was playing with a tennis ball and it rolled under the table next to the cat. When she tried to retrieve it, the cat started hissing and swatting at her. So, she did the logical thing - she tried to get her little brother to retrieve the ball.

She bears watching. I can only dread what she'll be like when she's a teenager.

I grew up in a town that got a lot of snow (30 year average snowfall is 424 cm/year) and the town owned a fleet of big twin engine snowblowers (picture for those unfamiliar with them). I recall going on a drive with my parents just before winter when I was 3 1/2 years old and seeing a ~5 ton truck with a crane behind the cab parked off the road (like the one pictured on this page). At that moment my mother commented to my father "It looks like it's going to snow", and from that coincidence I concluded that these crane-equipped trucks metamorphosed each year into the snowblowers that kept our streets clear.

That was more than 20 years before "Transformers" hit the North American toy market.

My 3-year-old nephew loves dinosaurs. When he first asked where all the dinosaurs are now, I told them they had died. His response was "Aww, poor dinosaurs! They need a mommy."

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking to my daughter about what she wants to be when she grows up (she's almost four). She then proceeded to ask me what I want to be.

I just kind of laughed and said, "I don't know - what do you think?" so she started making suggestions for me. "You could be a fire fighter...Or you could be a bus driver..."

I said, "Or I could be a computer programmer..."

She just looked at me for a second and then said, "Or you could work..."

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

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