Paul Hunter Zaid #6

Daylight Saving Time Explained

     As I get on in my years, Daylight saving time disrupts me more and more each season. I know I've heard the reasoning behind this system, but I realized it's escaped me and I'm sure many of you are in the same boat. So what's with this whole "Spring ahead, Fall back" business? Benjamin Franklin often gets credit for proposing daylight saving time. I've heard this somewhere along the line, but it’s not exactly true. Instead, Mr. Franklin put forth an idea in a 1784 satirical Journal of Paris essay, “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light": Residents would save money on candles if they got up with the sun instead of their usual wake-up time of noon. The idea failed to see the light of day until 1883, when U.S. railroads instituted a standardized time for their train schedules. That time change was imposed nationally during the First World War to conserve energy, but was repealed after the war. It again went into effect during World War II.

     After that, it was up to the states to decide if they wanted it, and when it would start and end. Congress finally enacted the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized the beginning and end of daylight time for the states that observed it. In 1974 and 1975, the energy crisis moved Congress to enact earlier daylight start times. They were reversed when the crisis ended. Since then daylight saving time had always been in April- until the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ordered the time change to begin earlier starting in March 2007.

Although there are now some eight months of daylight saving time, not everyone was behind the time change-including myself. 

     Growing up in rural Minnesota my parents told me daylight saving time was created so that farmers would have more daylight while planting in the spring. Of course with the same breath they stated that it was mostly for the town people so that they could play golf and enjoy the outdoors. Many in North America have come to believe that this system is almost a due, to extend the evening in summer. If you want to ignore daylight saving time, head to these places that don’t change their clocks: Hawaii and Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation), American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands all decline to observe daylight saving time, according to the Department of Energy. So is all this worth it? I'm not really sure as I'm lost in thought of long, sunny, warm days.