Standard Time Heralds

The end of daylight savings time signals the arrival of long dark winter nights with their correspondingly short winter days. The end of daylight time is as depressing as Labor Day Monday, as there is no doubt about it, darkness envelops the MonDak by 5 p.m. Even on a bright winter day, long purple shadows stretch out from their sources by 3:30 or 4 p.m. in the afternoon, letting us know nightfall lurks just around the corner. We plan winter outdoor activities during the day in increments of several hours apiece to ensure we have enough daylight to reach an appropriate stopping point before night arrives.

The idea, of course, behind setting clocks ahead one hour in the spring is to move that extra hour of daylight to the evening instead of keeping it in the early morning, as most people come home from work and make use of that extra daylight in the evening by working outdoors. People like the idea of the extra hour in the evening during the summer months, but by the time winter arrives, it really makes no difference whether that extra daylight is tacked on to the morning hours or remains part of the evening, as night falls early and daylight arrives late during the heart of winter.

Daylight savings time also saves energy in many parts of the country, as energy demand in homes relates directly to the times people spend indoors. A study done in the mid ‘70s indicated that most people use electricity in the home for appliances and lighting so an extra hour of daylight in the evening decreases demand for electricity.

Although Benjamin Franklin first conceived of the idea of daylight savings time, it wasn’t until World War II that people recognized the energy saving benefits of moving the clocks ahead one hour in the spring.

We have made it an annual ritual to turn clocks ahead one hour in the spring and revert back to standard time in the fall. All of the continental United States with the exception of Arizona participates in daylight and standard times.

In our present day, Daylight Savings Time begins on the second Sunday in March and standard time returns on the first Sunday in November. However, the business of altering time to suit locals didn’t always run so smoothly. Prior to the passage of the Uniform Time Act, municipalities could begin and end daylight savings time whenever it suited them. In the ‘50s and 60s, each U.S. locality could start and end daylight savings time at whim, which caused mild chaos in some cases. One year, 23 different pairs of daylight savings start and end dates were used in Iowa alone, and in another case, for five weeks each year, Boston, New York and Philadelphia were not on the same time as Washington D.C., Cleveland, or Baltimore, but Chicago was. On one Ohio to West Virginia bus route of 35 miles in length, passengers would have had to change their watches seven times in that 35-mile stretch if they wished to remain on local time.

Today, we enjoy the standardization of the beginning and end of daylight savings time. People may love it or hate it, but it is here to stay at least for awhile, and no matter how we alter clocks to suit ourselves, when November comes, the days get shorter and shorter, the nights longer and longer, and no changes on the reading of the clock faces can alter that fact. Winter has arrived, and we will not enjoy lengthy daylight hours for many months to come.