It’s about time
Don Coldsmith
Monday, March 12, 2007
THIS WEEK, WE’LL all be confused about what time it is. It’s time, as it annually is, to spend a few days in one of our more illogical customs, “Daylight Saving.”
Our encyclopedia has a very short paragraph about it, blaming the whole thing on a British custom which arose during World War I. The United states followed their example in 1918. The idea was to provide an extra hour of daylight, to accomplish more production for the War Effort. Our congress repealed the law in 1919, but Britain continued it. More time for recreation, as well as production.
World War II revived the idea, as the United states entered the war. Daylight Saving Time had been reinstated to allow for more work to be accomplished “For the War Effort.” Next, following the theory that “You can’t have too much of a good thing,” someone suggested ANOTHER hour to advance the clocks, calling it, in the central U.S., “Central War Time.” Now, it was TWO hours ahead of standard time.
I was in high school and I well remember getting up two hours early to go to band practice before classes. It was pitch black, of course, before sunrise. On the football field, where we practiced marching, it was necessary to turn on the arena lights. Well, so much for “daylight saving” to conserve energy.
Actually, there are other stories about the origin of this ridiculous custom. It is sometimes traced to Ben Franklin, a certified humorist. The Continental Congress was in session and running late. Franklin suggested that they vote to create another hour and someone challenged the validity of such an action.
“Where would you get another hour?”
Franklin related a story of an old man whose feet were cold, so he sewed another strip of blanket on that end, after cutting it from the part under his chin. This, of course, is a perfect analog for our present idiocy.
There may be those who actually think it gives us an extra hour of daylight to enjoy outdoor recreation and sports. Let it be noted, however, that every outdoor competitive game, contest or race will have an illuminated field or track anyway. I’m all in favor of long, warm evenings and twilights spent outdoors, but we don’t get that unless we head far away from town. Even then, the light reflected on the polluted upper atmosphere makes it impractical to even recognize and study the planets and constellations.
There is a state or two where they have decided not to pay attention to all this idiocy and they don’t observe Daylight Saving. Good for them! They save an entire weekend.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have wasted the same amount of time. We’ll reset every clock in the house, except of course, the intellectually superior models that reset themselves. I don’t really trust devices that are smarter than I am. Unfortunately, that’s quite a few. We still have to figure out which ones will reset and which won’t. More than once, I’ve reprogrammed devices which went ahead to repeat the reset, not trusting me to get it right.
Another dilemma — Are we resetting forward or back? There are cute limericks to tell us. Let’s see, now ...
Is it “fall forward and spring back?” Or, is it “spring forward and fall back?”
There are, of course, a few places where all this confusion is avoided. They simply ignore all the idiocy and avoid the confusion by not making any change, spring and fall. They stay on “God’s time.” Meanwhile, new gadgets are proliferating which will reset themselves electronically. We have a TV set which, twice a year, resets itself to accommodate the changes. It’s a pretty clever machine. However, apparently too smart. It’s so proud that it resets its clock twice, a week apart, both spring and fall.
There are a few areas left in the USA where common sense still prevails. Arizona, I believe, and some smaller areas in other parts of the country. They are laughing at the rest of us and the weekend we’ll waste getting straightened out. And Ben Franklin chuckles, wherever he may be.
See you down the road.