I used to love Daylight Savings Time.
People of a certain vintage (okay; my vintage) who grew up in the quaint age long before the advent of cable TV, hand-held video games, cell phones, text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat, and similar mind-numbing electronic providers of instant gratification had to satisfy themselves with simple pleasures, most of which involved playing outdoors. Fortunately there wasn’t any shortage of such opportunities.
Back then one of the most eagerly-anticipated events of the year was the start of Daylight Savings Time. The arrival of extended daylight hours confirmed that spring was well underway, and also assured that backyard football, Spud, badminton, wiffle ball, and hide and seek could go on well past 8 p.m. The onset of DST was also a harbinger of soon-to-arrive evenings when the sun would shine even later, and as a result basketball games a mile or more from home could go on until nearly 9 p.m. and still allow the participants time to hustle home before their mom and/or dad could scold them about the dangers of walking, running or pedaling after dark. Imagine that: a time when parents could get upset about their children playing outside for too long! How things have changed!
After indulging in a bit of Internet research (okay, so computers aren’t all bad), it turns out there are at least two tangible reasons I so fondly remember Daylight Savings Time’s arrival as the virtual beginning of summer. One is that I grew up in another state, one a couple of hundred miles south of (not to mention warmer than) where I live today. The other: starting in 1967 the entire nation, with the exception of some contrarians in Michigan and Arizona, advanced their clocks one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April as the result of the Uniform Time Act, a bit of congressional action encouraged by an American transportation industry frustrated by scheduling snafus which were all too often caused by the lack of time-keeping consistency across the country. Nineteen years later the start of DST was moved to the first Sunday in April, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 pushed it back to the second Sunday in March.
When Daylight Saving Time began at 2 a.m. the day before yesterday the piles of snow at the end of my driveway were still up to my neck, despite some recent settling. As such, the thought of staying outside after dinner (or even going outside after dinner) is a repugnant one. Early evening brightness or no, the time remaining from now until the start of summer still seems the same as it did last week, which was forever and a day.
In 1967, I was 10 years old, meaning that playing with friends outside after dinner was pretty much the only thing on my mind. Forty-eight years later I have other issues to worry about. After all, I am a responsible adult, and have been for nearly a decade now. This past weekend, I had to find time to return books to the library, get to the bank, mail some packages at the post office, grocery shop, take the kids to various and sundry activities including (but not limited to) baseball tryouts and a track meet. I also had to chop ice off the driveway, grade papers, prepare lesson plans for Monday morning’s classes, and schedule parent conferences for the coming week, and all before going to bed Sunday night. The time which elapsed between Friday night and yesterday morning when I got up for work had seemingly vaporized.
The reason for that ”“ thanks to the no-longer-so-eagerly-anticipated (and disgracefully premature) arrival of Daylight Savings Time ”“ my just-concluded weekend consisted of a mere 47 hours! No wonder it went by in a blur! Someone stole an hour from me this past Sunday morning, and I want it back! Who knows how significant it might have been?
Some people think everything that happens in life is preordained. And although I may or may not be one of them, I had an odd but chilling thought last night right before settling down for thirty or so seconds of relaxing reading before nodding off to begin the six or so hours of sleep I customarily get each night.
What if it were my destiny to be contacted by a major publisher wanting to buy the rights to my next six novels, but said magnate tried calling me from his ski villa in Switzerland at 8:30 a.m. Geneva time Sunday, which would have been 2:30 a.m. here in Maine. But 2:30 this past Sunday morning never existed, thanks to America’s mandated springing forward, which had taken place a half an hour earlier!
I detest Daylight Savings Time.
— When he isn’t bemoaning his unfairly-altered destiny, Andy Young teaches English and literacy at a local high school.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
