“An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an extra snooze one night in the autumn is all that we ask in return for dazzling gifts. We borrow an hour one night in April; we pay it back with golden interest five months later.” -Winston Churchill
Did you remember to spring forward this morning and make it to church on time? I’ve come down with a spring cold so I stayed home to keep from sharing my germs. I think I went through the wrong checkout line at the store last week. The clerk had a red nose and cheeks – a lot the way I do now.
If I had been able to go, I think I would have made it on time to church. My husband was probably almost on time. But I have to admit to doing a little extra yawning this morning the way Winston Churchill said in his quote above and it’ll probably be worse tomorrow when I get up to start writing. I’ll be ready to nod off at my computer every time I stop to think about what’s next. Maybe ideas will come to me in my sleep.
I put a post on Facebook asking if my friends there liked Daylight Saving Time. I added this picture with a quote
I found when I was touring a museum in St. Louis. I’ve been surprised that the majority of those who commented were like me and didn’t like DST so much. I don’t like it when they start it so early in the year because where we are in Kentucky that makes us almost an hour and a half off sun time. I like sun time. Actually when I was a kid we were in the Central Time Zone, but changed to the Eastern Time Zone to keep from going on Daylight Saving Time every summer. That lasted a few years until the powers that be put us back on DST but we stayed in the Eastern Time Zone.
Some time ago I did a little research on when DST started and wrote a post about that here on One Writer’s Journal in 2009. (I’ve been at this blogging for a long time and have written about most everything at one time or another.) Anyway I found out that in 1784 Benjamin Franklin thought DST would be a great idea, but it didn’t catch on then. It wasn’t until 1918 that the U.S. first implemented DST to help with energy saving until the end of WW I, but DST proved so unpopular that the order was repealed after 1919. At the time many people still lived on farms and sun time made the most sense to them. But when the nation entered the Second World War, Daylight Saving Time was brought back to once again save energy for the war effort. The nation moved the clocks one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time year round from 1942 to 1945. In England they also moved the clocks ahead one hour year round during the war and in the summer they had Double Summer Time when they moved the clocks ahead two hours.
After 1945, states and municipalities were free to observe or not observe DST on whatever schedule they decided to set. This caused so much confusion with train and bus schedules and television and radio program listings that Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 in an effort to standardize the time throughout the country. Areas of the country were still free to not observe DST if they passed a local ordinance, but if they did decide on DST, they had to start it on the last Sunday in April and end it on the last Sunday in October. This stayed the timetable until 1986 when the beginning time was moved to the first Sunday in April. And now it’s been moved up even more and ends later.
My dad would never change his clocks to DST the second time it was legislated in Kentucky. He just did the math. We had an old farmer neighbor who never changed from the first time we had DST and his clocks were two hours off everybody else’s in the summer and one hour off in the winter. He went by the sun time he’d grown up with. I’m not that against DST. I set all my clocks up this morning although I admit it was sort of creepy that my Fitbit bracelet knew the right time at 2 a.m.
Frankie didn’t know what was going on when I took him out early this morning but he settled down pretty good tonight. I guess we can all adjust except my Dad and that old farmer I once knew.
Now the question is do you like it? Are you happy with having that extra yawn in the spring and do you think it does present us with dazzling gifts of more sunshine after our work or school days?
Comments 14
DST or CT. It makes absolutely no difference to me but PALEEEZE!!!! keep it one time!!! Quit playing with the clock! It takes my body too much time to adjust!
Author
I hear you, Karen. And they say it is hard on our health to do the time adjusting. People who are diabetics really struggle to get back on a schedule and if you have a baby on a feeding schedule, you are probably ready to throw up your hands in despair. I don’t have either of those problems. But I do like sun time since I’m a country girl.
My cousin has a unique hobby. He buys & repairs old clocks. Saturday evening he commented he would have to reset 57 clocks!
Some of these clocks chime and cuckoo, etc.
I was trying to figure out how he could stand to listen to all that noise!
Author
That would be a lot of chiming and cuckooing for sure. You do get used to the chiming clocks and sleep right through them or at least I do. However, 57 might be more than a person could block out. Some clocks do have a feature where you can turn off the chimes at night. I wonder if he has them set to go off all at the same time or if he varies them to keep the chiming going.
Personally, I hate it! I wish North Carolina would adopt some Arizona attitude! 😉
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What scares me is that some want to make the DST all year around, Robin. I guess it doesn’t really matter what the clock says if you can set your own hours like me, but I still don’t like it. I’ve heard Arizona is a great state. 🙂
Wow! I sure hope not. Although, if they’d just set it & leave it alone, it’d be alright. 😀
I don’t know what purpose it serves anymore. I wish they would just choose one and then stop goofing it up twice a year!
Author
I heard on the radio the other day that the number of heart attacks go way up on the day after the time changes, Paula. So maybe we should find a way to ease into the time change gradually. Not sure how that could be done, but it sounds good. LOL
I like it.I like the fact that it gets dark later…I love sitting outside til the last rays go down and when its an hour later that gives me more time to get my things done before my evening sit down.
That farmer friend of yours was a stubburn one, wasn’t he? 😄
Author
He was an individual, Lisa. After he died, his wife didn’t change the clocks either. She was definitely an individual. Lived alone on her farm for many years and did all the repairs and chores and got up her wood for the stove.
I know a lot of people love the DST and I don’t mind it in the summer time. I just wish they wouldn’t start it so early.
Arizona is smart. Stay on one time. I remember when Indiana was split down the middle, half on EST, half on CST. If one lived in a county on one side of the line and worked in another on the other side, a bit of chaos arose. Children in school were on one time; Mom and/or Dad might be on another. DST was not uniformly observed. It was a mess. Who knew what time it was?
About Daylight Savings Time – try living in Arizona, where the time doesn’t change at all, but we’re surrounded by states that do! I have to keep a note near the phone and one on the computer to remind me what time it is before I call in either direction! Don’t tell anyone I said so, but Arizona has an attitude! 😉
Author
We took a trip out west a few years ago, Patricia, and I remembered that Arizona didn’t do Daylight Saving Time. I thought my dad and that old farmer would have been happy. 🙂