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1) "I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container" ( one of Bill Bryson quotes)
2) "My boss is a nice man once you get to know him."(from cambridge grammar today)
Could it be "once you grow up" in the first sentence ?
I doubt the first sentence is grammatically correct but then who am I to question Bill Bryson.I would be grateful if someone can walk me through over this
Bryson is correct. The entire clause that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted is in the past tense because it's the subject of the verb "thought." The act of thinking takes place in the past, so the things he's thinking about also take place in the past, even if the concepts themselves are timeless.
To put another spin on it, imagine he wrote the clause in the present tense instead:
I had always thought that once you grow up you can do anything you want.
The problem is that the present is a specific point in time. Now young Bryson in the past is, for some reason, thinking about this specific day in his distant future. This is obviously nonsensical, so we need to write it from his perspective in the past.
