Falling Behind

Isn’t the concept of “spring ahead, fall behind,” obsolete yet?

I get it that back 100 years ago or so, electricity wasn’t exactly all that mainstream yet, and farmers had to rely on the early morning hours of daylight to get a head start on their day. At least that’s what I heard the reasoning was for the clock flip-flop. Upon further investigation, I learned that World War I supposedly spurred this daylight conservation idea.

If farmers supported this, I don’t know why. What crops are growing at this time of year anyway, especially if you live in the Northeast? Can’t the farmers just get up with the rest of us to milk the cows? Oh wait—they don’t do that anymore—we have machines for that!

I really don’t see a point to setting the clocks back an hour in the fall. The sunlight does me absolutely no good in the morning when it streams in my room when I still can sleep for another hour. I’d much prefer this extra daylight at the end of my day, so I can eat my dinner without turning on lights. Daylight Savings Time doesn’t seem very “green” to me when I have to flick the switches on in my house one hour earlier each evening. So much for the WWI saving energy theory, which has been touted as the reason for starting this nonsense with our clocks in the first place.

And isn’t it bad enough when you travel from time zone to time zone that you have to reset your watch and do the math to get on the same page as everyone else? Now if you leave the United States or travel to non-participating daylight savings states like Arizona and Hawaii, you have to remember to add an hour—or is it subtract one—to the “normal” range of time discrepancy. I guess it depends if you’re flying East or West.

And how depressing is it to drive home from work in the dark. Even if you are fortunate enough to be able to leave before 5 o’clock?  It feels like you’re on the midnight shift then.

Personally, I think this Daylight Savings Time thing is a safety hazard.  Deer become more active in the winter in this area. Those driving home at rush hour on semi-wooded roads in darkness can’t see these creatures as well when they venture out onto the roads. Almost everyone I know has either hit a deer with their car or had a deer hit their car at one time or another around here. It’s very scary when there’s not substantial light at the time of day you have a majority of the roadway traffic.

The idea of children coming home from after school activities dropped off at bus stops and crossing streets in clock-induced evening darkness doesn’t thrill me either.

Some people cheer at the idea of being able to get an extra hour added to their weekends during the autumn time switcheroo. But wait—aren’t you forgetting something? In the spring, we all get to wake up an hour earlier when the clocks spring ahead an hour and feel like we have sleep hangovers until our body clocks readjust again. All it is is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I’m all for keeping me on one consistent time, thank you very much.

I remember the added stress of the seasonal time changes when my daughter was an infant, too. I  finally established a normal bedtime so she would fall asleep before me and wake up predictably at a human hour in the morning. Then the government has to go pass a law to require us to mess with the clocks.  Grrrr!  Not fair!  I had to try to put her to bed an hour earlier or keep her up an hour later hoping she would magically adjust to a new sleep schedule. It caused undue stress for me, and generally did not work. I did not appreciate my daughter waking up at 5:30am when her body clock thought it was 6:30am, and I was exhausted.

I’ve heard rumors of Daylight Savings Time being phased out, but I couldn’t seem to Google any evidence to support that.  We do change our clocks later in the autumn season now, and earlier on in the spring.  Is this just a teaser, or are we finally going to ditch the daylight supposed savings idea soon?

I think it’s about time.  Yes, it’s all about time.   

As for now, I think we are really falling behind the times.  Arizona,  Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Savings Time.  Until 2006, only part of Indiana observed it.

If you ask me, the states and territories that don’t change their clocks twice a year are light-years ahead of the rest of our country, not just an hour.