Saving Daylight and Other Fallacies

I’m so done with it, and it seems I’m not alone. News reports would have us believe our province came close to doing away with daylight savings time. But for whatever reasons, we’re still changing our clocks despite all the stats revealing the rise in accidents and illness associated with this disruption to our biological rhythms.

When my news-feed was all about Manitoba following Saskatchewan’s example and cancelling the time change, the big question was, “which way should it go? Should we stay on standard time all year or on daylight savings?”

Personally, I wouldn’t really care. Just make it stop. But if I had to pick, I’d say stick with standard. People say they like the long summer evenings. Really? I like to think that on Canada Day, we could start the fireworks by ten o’clock instead of waiting on the banks of Crescent Lake, swatting mosquitoes until nearly eleven when the show finally starts. I hope I don’t get hate mail telling me to move to Saskatchewan.

Speaking of time zones. I visited Florida last month, but I was in the same time zone as home. Did you know that was possible? I sure didn’t. With Florida on the east coast, I initially had Atlantic time in my mind—two hours difference. Then I remembered the way the continent narrows as you move south, and I thought it would be only one hour different. And for most of Florida, that’s true. But if you study the map, you’ll see that Florida’s pan handle runs to the west, along the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico (just south of Alabama), and it’s in the central time zone, same as home. Although I crossed over into Eastern time when I landed in Atlanta, I crossed back again en route to Destin. (Which, by the way, was named after its founder. But what a great “Destin”ation!)

I found it strange how it felt like summer, but it was dark by six. Now I’m home and as soon as we turn our clocks ahead this weekend, it’ll still be light at seven even though there’s still three feet of snow on the ground. It just doesn’t compute with my time-warped foggy brain.

If I were in charge, I’d change the whole darn calendar. For example, I think they should have made January twenty-eight days long and February thirty-one. It might not change the weather, but at least it would feel like progress.

Better yet—if we can skip or add an hour simply by turning the clocks backward and forward, why not skip or add an entire month? At midnight on December 31, we could turn our calendars ahead to February 1. Then, to make it up, we could turn them back a month on July 31 and repeat July. That would suit me just fine. I love July. January, I could do without. Guess it’s good I’m not in charge.

Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead tonight or you’ll be late for church.

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” II Peter 3:8.