That is not a misspelling in the title. It is saving, not savings, time. We all recently set our clocks back an hour. If you didn’t, that may be the reason you have been early to everything recently. Or late? I’m still not sure and admit it … you’re not either. Oh well, why do we continue to confuse ourselves twice a year and completely discombobulate our circadian rhythms?
We currently have extra light in the morning to navigate travel to school and work. But if you’re retired, who cares? I would much rather have the extra daylight in the evenings to take my after-dinner constitutional, especially when dessert is leftover Halloween candy. Dental appointment, anyone?
In pondering this topic, I realized that we have always wanted access to time travel – and this is it! We are going back and forth in time just on our own whims. Pretty cool when you think of it that way. And we don’t even need a DeLorean and a flux capacitor. Take that, Doc Emmet Brown and Marty McFly.
I have always assumed that this changing of the clocks was initiated by and for farmers. Not true. In fact, the farm lobby campaigned aggressively against daylight saving time. That’s because it gave them one less hour in the morning to milk their cows and send their crops to market. Farmers in the U.S. successfully lobbied to end daylight saving time after World War I, and it wouldn’t return until the next world war.
Not everyone observes it. Arizona does not, except for the Navajo Nation. Hawaii doesn’t either, along with Puerto Rico or other American islands. Parts of Indiana didn’t as well until it was adopted statewide in 2006. Can you imagine driving from one part of Indiana to another for an appointment? Jimmy Chitwood might have been late for the game in which he made the game-winning shot in “Hoosiers.” Worse yet: Consider the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt Earp and Bros, and Doc Holiday would have shown up, but not the Clanton gang. I doubt the Clanton and McLaury boys carried watches. We wouldn’t have all those great Western movies to watch.
In the last five years, 19 states, including Colorado, have enacted legislation or passed resolutions in favor of year-round daylight saving time. In March 2022, the Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021. The bill allows moving time forward by one hour from what the federal government considers standard time. If passed by the House, permanent DST would have started in November 2023. However, it is now 2025, and the bill still has not been passed by the House. Ahh, Congress. Why are we not surprised? If they had passed it, they might have had more time not to get things done.
Either way, it doesn’t change the nighttime weather report, which remains dark, with increasing light toward morning.
According to The Atlantic, the time shift may be detrimental to our health. Because of sleep cycle changes, there may be adverse effects on people with seasonal affective disorder. It turns out that change could even be linked to higher risks of heart attacks, car accidents and even malfunctioning medical equipment. Oh great … the year 2000 fears all over again. The good news: A 2015 study by the Brookings Institution showed a drop in crime when DST begins in the spring. The extra evening daylight may serve as a deterrent. Robbers tend to work the night shift.
My mom, who is still the best human I have met on the planet, always said: “When you make a friend of change, you make a friend for life.”
Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach living in Durango. Reach him at cross_j@fortlewis.edu.
