Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

We've had a great response from readers telling us their childhood myths. A lot of them are too rude or racist to publish. But we have a few for your reading pleasure.

In the course of collating these, I was reminded of grandfather's comments to children on the boat, presumably to quieten us down, that we were about to go across the fold in the chart and we might feel the bump.

There's a modern version we use now, with the advent of GPS, when crossing a longitude or latitude, suggesting to the kids they might be able to see the line in the water.

I've also been shocked to learn, in the process of this investigation, that our pet sheep Lambchops who we were told went 'for a holiday” on Uncle George's farm, was in fact turned into dog tucker the next day.

And to think that for all those years, until this week, I'd assumed Lambchops had lived out her days happily and productively growing wool and contributing directly to the nation's GDP.

Elaine Rickard writes that as a child growing up in the fifties, her summer job was picking gooseberries – the little prickly bush type.
'On asking my parents where babies came from you can imagine how puzzled I became when told they came from under the gooseberry bush. I never saw a baby!”

Helen Neilson:
When I was a child (many years ago) there was a tin of salt (Cerebos, I think it was) which had a picture on it of a boy chasing a rooster, trying to put salt on its tail. I was so impressed by this, that when I spotted an eel in the creek at the bottom of the garden, I ran for the salt to put on its tail to catch it. It didn't work!

Jean Taylor:
1. Four-year-old daughter, Natasha, would never put on her cardigan or jacket when it was cold (we're talking England here), so mom (me) would tell her: 'If you don't put a jacket on, you'll catch cold”. This had little effect, next time I said: 'If you don't put your jacket on you'll catch pneumonia!” But this had little effect either, so after about the fifth time of this, mom decides to up the ante a notch higher and said: 'Natasha, if you don't put your jacket on this minute, you'll get OLDmonia, and that's a lot worse than NEWmonia!” This did the trick in a trice and all was well.
Later, much later...in fact many years later, Natasha confided that she had believed there was an illness called OLDmonia, right up till she was at high school and she had even insisted to a teacher that there was. As she said later, much disillusioned with the falseness of mom, she realised she had been fooled.

2. Second daughter, Rachel, also around four, was watching our ancient second-hand TV, delighted as we hadn't had one since arriving in New Zealand when she was two.

Some time later that week, I heard a friend ask her if she had a colour TV. Rachel promptly replied 'yes”, at which point I was feeling bad for her that she felt so pressured to lie. But Rachel continued...”yes, we have a yellow one”. That was true. The wood surround of this ancient TV was indeed pale yellow! Oh ye of little faith mom!

Adrienne Cleaver:
We love your column each week. My husband never laughs much, but he has a ‘deep from the heart' chuckle at most of your stories.
My story comes from the tale that our parents told their four little girls as we came home at night from Matangi to Te Awamutu – which was quite a long trip in those days in the old Vanguard. When asked how the car knew which way to get back home, dad replied, 'See the white line in the middle of the road? Well the car just has to follow that and it takes us right to our house”. I guess it made logic and we did get home in the dark. And parents knew everything then didn't they?

Ruth:
'Don't put your money in your mouth – it might have come from a Chinaman's pocket.”

Finally, we were expecting to hear from the Rena captain, perhaps his parents told him 'if you give it enough throttle…”

And speaking of ships, our picture this week from reader David, titled ‘worst page layout ever':

Parting thought

Some advice for us, thanks to Wally:
1. Money cannot buy happiness, but it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.

2. Forgive your enemy, but remember the bastard's name.
3. Help someone when they are in trouble and they will remember you when they're in trouble again.

4. Many people are alive only because it's illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk.