It is the time of year we begin to ponder the approaching autumn season. The afternoon sun is setting a little earlier and the scent of pumpkin coffee suggests summer has concluded. Gone are the days of summer when we complain about excessive temperatures and too many people at the beach. Yes, those frightful winter days will arrive very soon with freezing temperatures, deep snow, school cancellations and certainly early darkness.
Autumn was a time to harvest our bountiful crops and preserve food for the winter. It was a time to celebrate and enjoy a feast with many friends. Apples were maturing on trees and cider was aged for enjoyment until planting season arrived once again. But it is the changing of the old clocks that I write about, for Nov. 2 is approaching and you will turn your clock back once again. Those early sunsets will grow earlier and the winter will be a little less enchanted with less sunshine.
Daylight saving time is an event that people either love or hate. We change the clocks back with an extra hour of sleep as a reward. In the spring, clocks spring ahead resulting in the hour loss of sleep. Regardless of your thoughts about daylight saving time, it is something we have lived with our entire lives and continue to do so.
When I was a child many decades ago, I remember asking my teacher in elementary school
about daylight saving time. She told me that the reasoning was quite logical … the farmers benefited from daylight saving time because the sunshine was available for them sooner. Being naturally inquisitive, I asked my teacher why this event continued to occur when there were less and less farmers and why couldn’t we just have regular time all the time. At this point, I usually received a pained expression from Sister Louis and dropped my line of questioning before I was told to stand in the corner for talking too much.
As I aged, I often thought about daylight saving time as a function in modern society that really wasn’t that necessary, logical or beneficial to me. But I just kept thinking about those poor farmers that Sister Louis told me about and continued on with my life, turning the clocks back and then turning the clocks ahead year after year.
I am finally at the point in my life where I can reflect on my earlier thoughts regarding daylight saving time. I think my very early thoughts in elementary school were the purest, most unbiased and logical thoughts and I am no longer concerned about those farmers either.
Not every state changes their clocks on Nov. 2, but most of the United States will indeed change their clocks back that Sunday, ending daylight saving and returning to the standard time.
Revisiting my early years with Sister Louis, I always assumed that daylight saving time must have always existed and many generations before me dealt with it, so I would too.
But I learned that was not the case at all. A gentleman in Germany named William Willet was apparently very concerned about his local farmers because he engaged in deep thought about the rising sun, the setting sun and those poor farmers. He actually proposed the idea of daylight saving time in 1907 and Germany thought Willett had a very good idea. Germany implemented the daylight saving time system in 1916 with the thought of conserving energy during World War I. This change was both recognized and analyzed by other countries and the U.S. adopted daylight saving time in 1918 as a function during the war. There was even discussion in Concord about leaving the daylight saving time in tact after the war because people thought the energy savings would be beneficial to local citizens. The Concord Board of Trade even went so far as to say they were going to just set the city clock that rested on top of their building on Main Street to the daylight saving time schedule.
As World War II began, the thoughts of conserving energy during wartime returned to the people of the U.S. and the daylight saving time schedule was implemented in 1942 and was commonly referred to as “War Time.” At the conclusion of World War II, daylight saving time was thought to conclude, but change was on the horizon. Some people continued to follow the daylight saving time schedule along with their state while others didn’t. “Clock Chaos” was used because not everybody was on the same page.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized the daylight saving time practice across the U.S. It is interesting to note that any state does have the choice of opting out of daylight saving time and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended daylight saving time for several weeks. Both Arizona and Hawaii opted out of daylight saving time and remain on standard time throughout the year. After all of these years, and with my daylight saving time research for this story, I felt slightly disappointed. What about all those farmers Sister Louis told me about, they were not even mentioned in the history of daylight saving time. Perhaps a story was started by a farmer who passed it on to another farmer and so on until it became urban folklore. As another time change looms, I have decided to accept the clock change. If not for the farmers, I will do it for that coveted extra hour of sleep.