It's Daylight Savings day! Springeth thou forward! I anticipate this day every year with unabashed glee. I know that you lose an hour of sleep (and believe me I need that hour) but the hour of daylight gained at the end of the day is magical. When 7 o'clock rolls around and it's still light out it makes me unreasonably giddy. It's the most dramatic of spring's harbingers and one of my favorites.
When I was a kid though this day meant only one thing: cartoons would be on TV when we got home from school. A large chunk of my childhood was spent in South Bend, Indiana where we did not ever change our clocks. We stubbornly stayed on Standard Time the entire year. What this meant to me was that sometimes Tom and Jerry was on when we got home from school and sometimes we had to wait an entire hour before it was on. Most of our TV stations, including the all-important, gloriously brain-rotting channel 32, came in from Chicago via the enormous antenna that my dad installed on our roof. Chicago, being on Central Time, and South Bend, being on Eastern Time would for the brief Daylight Savings interlude share a de facto time zone. (Have I confused you yet? Indiana is also the only state that has counties in different time zones. Why? Because they like confusing the auslanders). Until we moved to a city in a more reasonable state I thought that only people in Chicago did this weird thing with their clocks, that being the scope of my experience. (Just as I thought that all phone numbers began with the number 2, as they did in South Bend. I even thought that when you heard a phone number on tv that began with a number other than 2 it was because, duh, it was a fake number. Really, I was that convinced). Imagine my consternation when we had to change our clocks twice a year because that was what the ENTIRE WORLD did, save 27 or so counties in Indiana. It was so jarring that it was my first realization that time is an abstraction, that it's only there because we all believe it's there.
I bring this up because it's come to my attention (as it may have come to yours due to all the "shucks, aren't those backwards midwest folks kooky" news stories running now) that Indiana has finally dragged itself into the '70's. They have legislated that the entire state must now be on Daylight Savings time. Of course, they didn't want to make it too easy so instead of also legislating that the entire state be in one time zone they let some counties stay in Central time even though most of the state is on Eastern Time. And just to f*ck with everybody they changed some counties that were in the Eastern Time Zone to now be on Central Time. Effective today, residents of those few lucky counties get to first set their clocks back an hour and then set them forward an hour. Or, just do nothing, as their forbears have done on this day for the last 35 years.
Enjoy the light everybody!
Just one question. Are we going ON daylight savings or OFF daylight savings? I've never quite grasped the concept. Are we saving daylight in the morning? Or the evening? Please help this old gray head.
Posted by: mom | April 03, 2006 at 08:13 AM
Two thoughts:
First, you said "harbingers" which I love, because it's a great word AND it reminds me of hamburgers.
Second, can you imagine the poor moms that rely on those after-school tv shows to get a friggin break in the afternoon. I'm testafying that messing with time zones and tv schedules is akin to mommy-abuse.
Posted by: Mignon | April 03, 2006 at 12:26 PM
That's why yesterday seemed to stretch out for a long time during the day, but the evening went by in a flash. Yeah...the extra hour of daylight is nice.
Posted by: wordgirl | April 03, 2006 at 02:22 PM
Mother - we are going ON daylight savings I believe. But I would accept a reasonable argument to the contrary.
Mmmmmm... hamburgers...
Posted by: LetterB | April 03, 2006 at 08:21 PM
Daylight savings time is causing havoc in my house this year. I love the daylight in the evening too, but nobody can get to sleep and we're all tired!
Posted by: jess | April 04, 2006 at 06:06 PM
thank you Wimpy. I think you're right. Can't wait to get my hands on Lowell. Is the Tot Lot still an appropriate venue?
Posted by: mom | April 05, 2006 at 07:55 AM
Jess - we've been having some rocky bedtimes too. It is the demon flipside. I am personally not affected since I can't f*cking sleep anyway due to the moving anxiety. feh.
Mummy - the snot lot has lost it's luster these days. We've moved on to the big kid playground. It is filled with danger, that's why he likes it.
Posted by: LetterB | April 05, 2006 at 11:30 PM
they don't change the time in AZ either. not sure if it's the whole state or just phoenix...
Posted by: kara | April 06, 2006 at 01:34 PM