No, none of that is true. I stole that from a popular meme that credits the Native Americans with making fun of "the white man" for enacting Daylight Savings Time. You must be aware that you will "lose" an hour of sleep tonight when you wake up at 2:00 a.m. to move your clocks ahead. Actually, you will probably lose more than an hour because, if you're like me, you will not be able to fall back to sleep after being so rudely awakened by your iPhone . . . which will change its time without any help from you. And now I'm wondering how many people actually change their clocks at 2:00 a.m. instead of enjoying a normal morning until they realize it's later than they thought? And how many cars remain on standard time because their owners have no patience to figure out how to change the damn clock on the dashboard?
Daylight Savings Time is 100 years old this year! In 1918, the first year of the time change, golf ball sales increased by 20%! Although DST was supposed to help to reduce energy consumption, it turns out that people were using more gas to drive to the outdoor venues where they could enjoy the longer days, so that savings was questionable.
I am old enough to remember the gas shortage of 1974. In fact, I had my interview for a teaching job in the principal's car in line for gas. It was an hour and a half interview; he had no choice but to hire me! (VTHS peeps: you can thank the gas shortage for our current friendship!) What I do not recall was that on January 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon forced the entire nation into year-round Daylight Savings Time to stave off the energy crisis and lessen the impact of the gas shortage. But within a month of that ruling, eight children died in traffic accidents, six of them attributed to children going to school in the dark.
Nonetheless, the State of Florida has recently passed the "Sunshine Protection Act" to extend DST to year-round. Legislators claim that it will "put more sunshine in our lives." Sounds magical, doesn't it? The bill still has to be approved by the federal government, but if passed, Florida will be eternally at odds with Arizona, a state which refuses to recognize DST. This is really only a problem when you embark upon a Southeast Road Trip and have to calculate your drive times and hotel arrivals in neighboring states. Been there, done that. I guess, in essence, we agree to disagree.
Seventy countries around the world participate in DST. That means that 125 countries do not (if current figures are correct). Although there are many passionate arguments for and against the measure, I have to admit that I kind of like it. Tomorrow night, I will sit on my lanai well into the evening and enjoy the "extra" daylight. And the next morning, I will sleep later than usual, something that retired people can do any damn time they please.
In doing my research for this post, I came upon John Oliver's "How Is This Still a Thing?" about DST. Google it if you want his always-funny perspective. And I should note that I also just finished reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, just in time for the movie release.
Daylight Savings Time. A wrinkle in time, indeed.
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