Imperfect Timing

It's that time of year again -- time to gripe about the time.

Sunday morning at 2 am, most of us in the U.S. will be turning back the hands on our clocks and enjoying another hour of sleep.

Some of us will welcome the extra shuteye. Others will complain that it throws off their sleeping patterns. And still others will bemoan the darkness that comes earlier in the day.

In a couple of days, the noise will end, and water cooler conversations will get back to what really matters: Whom will the Bachelor choose? Why do we have to start advertising Christmas so early? (it used to be the day after Thanksgiving); and, always a hot topic in my local Facebook group, is this the week when bulk items are picked up on garbage day?

A Little History

Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been around since 1905, invented by a New Zealander who wanted to shift the time by TWO hours. (Imagine the outcry THAT would cause here.) His idea morphed into the one-hour method, which was picked up first by a couple hundred Canadians in 1908 (props to our neighbors to the north). It wouldn't be until 1916 that Germany and Austria got on board, and they did it for practical reasons -- they were two years into the Great War and wanted to save fuel for the war effort. 

Other countries followed over the ensuing weeks. The practice was discontinued after World War I and was not taken up again until the start of World War II. (Here in the States, we didn't enact a law until 1918, but it was so unpopular, it was repealed after seven months, only to be brought back as "War Time" during WWII.)

From 1945 to 1966, there was no federal law regulating Daylight Saving Time. So states and local governments could decide willy-nilly whether or not to observe DST and what times it would begin and end.

Understandably, this was a nightmare for certain industries, particularly broadcasting and travel.  Railroad timetables, for example, were changing constantly. And if you happened to be taking a jaunt along a 35-mile stretch of Route 2 between Moundsville, WV and Steubenville, Ohio, you had to put up with seven different time changes. 

Congress finally stepped in and said "enough" in 1966, establishing one pattern for Daylight Saving Time that applied to the entire country. However, they also stipulated that if an entire state wanted to remain on Standard Time, they could do so. (Indiana didn't adopt DST until 2006).

These days, the debate continues, with camps divided among those who want to keep DST, those who want to abolish it, and those who want to go to DST all the time.

I'm in the third camp. I would rather have a little more light at the end of the day. I don't need the sun to make an appearance uber early. For example, if we abolish DST, on the longest day of the year, the sun would rise at 4:52 am and set at 8:04 pm. 

Doctors say all of this changing messes with our innards. I suppose that's true if you're on a rigid schedule, but I'm not. I would imagine one could mitigate this by hitting the sack an hour later tonight, but perhaps I oversimplify. (I do know animals are messed up by the time change, so Maggie will be in my grill at 6 am for sure.)

Whatever camp you may be in, enjoy your extra hour of sleep. 

You can rest up for next spring, when the battle over DST begins anew.