I am an avid reader of your website, and often print it to share with my family so we all can learn from it. At my daughter's suggestion and urging, I share the following story that happened to us:

Fall Back

New York, Monday, November 1st. It was the first day of turning back the clock from Daylight Savings Time to Eastern Standard Time (it was also the day after Halloween). It got dark early now, around 5:00 PM.

As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I remember the feeling of fear of being pelted with eggs from rooftops (a Halloween tradition) while waiting at the city bus stop on the way home from Yeshiva. We got out about three hours after the public schools, and the time change brought the onset of night much earlier; it was always an uneasy feeling at that time of year.

Now, years later as a parent here in Queens, my son was being transported by car pool from Yeshiva. It was 6:45 PM, by now my son was always home. I started thinking of my fears this time of year as a kid growing up. I started thinking out loud of the irresponsible parent picking up…was it that parent who was always late?

My twelve-year old daughter reminded me of Ohr Somayach's "The Other Side of the Story." You have to be open minded and "dan lechaf zechut" (judge favorably). At 7 PM my son walked in. "What happened?" I asked. My son answered, "now that the clock was changed, we started praying the maariv service in Yeshiva at 6:30. Too bad David's mother didn't know about the schedule change…she waited fifteen minutes out in the parking lot, wondering where we were." "See, Daddy," my daughter said, "there's another side of the story."

Submitted by an Ohrnet reader

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