Ah, that reminds me of when BAW was little...

So, the S Independence Stint reminded me of my all time favorite story of BAW in the Era known in our house as BK; Before Kids. Actually, it came A LOT Before Kids.


BAW's family made Aliya from Queens when he was but a wee lad of 2 years old. We've recently counted and just figured out that this summer BAW made aliyah for the third, yes, THIRD time. Anywhoo...


BAW's father tells the story of the Ws of the time; new (read: clueless) immigrants, with no background in Hebrew language, in the late 70's before Aliyah was all the rage, and before most Israelis knew any English. It was a very different time back then. Well, every day, my FIL would dutifully put BAW (which is such a silly acronym for him in this story, since at the time he was FOUR years old) on the van that would take him to his school and every day he would wait in the same spot to greet the van and take BAW home. Until one very different day when the van pulled up, let off the other kids, and BAW was no where to be seen. My FIL asked the driver, "Wait! Where's my son?" to which the driver replied, "He wasn't at school."


Trying not to panic, my FIL ran home and called the school, who also informed him that BAW never showed up at school that day. "But I put him on the van myself this morning!" Long story short, and lots of panic later, here's what had happened.


My FIL had indeed put him on a van that morning, just not the right one. He went to a different school, sat through a whole day of class, and here's the kicker, no one even noticed an extra boy, a cute red head sitting there in class. Until the end of the day, when all the children went on their respective vans and he was left sitting alone in the classroom. Somehow they were able to get his name out of him and at the same time my FIL was trying to track him down, they made the connection, and were able to reach my FIL who came to pick him up. From a different school. At the end of the day.


Can you imagine the panic my in-laws must've endured for those agonizingly long minutes until they figured that out? Again, it's just a reminder about how different things are here.


Kinda makes my S story seem silly.