Fall back
03/11/24 01:51
The United States didn’t officially establish standardized time zones in law until the Standard Time Act of 1918. However, United States and Canadian railroads instituted standard time zones that are roughly the same as the time zones we observe today in 1883. Sir Stanford Fleming, a Canadian railway planner and engineer, outlined a plan for worldwide standard time in the late 1870s and in 1884 delegates from 27 countries met in Washington, D.C., and agreed to a basic system that is very similar to the one now in use.
I’ve read that there was significant resistance to the adoption of standard time. People thought of time as being a local phenomenon. When the sun reached its highest point in the sky it was noon. That was different in different places. The thought that the railroad company could tell them what time it was seemed wrong to many. In some places there were two clocks installed in public places, one showing the local time the other showing railroad time. After a while, however, the concept of local time faded and standard time became the way time is understood.
I’m old enough that I can remember before the Uniform Time Act established Daylight Savings Time in the United States as a regular observance. Prior to my time, Daylight Savings Time had been implemented during World War I and also during World War II to implement energy savings. It was called “War Time” by President Franklin Roosevelt. During the energy crisis, the year after I was married, Congress ordered year-round Daylight Savings Time, but public response to it was so negative that it was later repealed. It wasn’t until 2007 that the shifting to Daylight Savings Time on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November became standard. States can opt out of Daylight Savings Time by passing a state law. Hawaii and Arizona do not observe Daylight Savings Time.
I’ve lived most of my life in the Mountain Time Zone. We moved to Chicago, which is in the Central Time Zone for four years and we now have lived in the Western Time Zone for a little over four years. The rest of the time I’ve been a Mountain Time Zone person. There have been some quirks in all of that, however. In 1985 we moved from Hettinger, North Dakota to Boise, Idaho. Both places are in Mountain Time, but the sun rises and sets about 50 minutes later in Boise than in Hettinger. For the decade we lived in Idaho we got in the habit of staying up an hour later than was our usual when we lived in North Dakota and sleeping in an hour later in the morning. Since we moved in the summer, we simply adjusted our clocks to the late sunset. Then, in 1995, we moved from Boise to Rapid City, South Dakota, shifting our clocks back by the same amount. We started going to bed earlier and rising earlier.
While all of that was going on, we were shifting from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time each year. As far as I can remember, I only forgot to set our clocks once. It was when we lived in North Dakota before we had cell phones or clocks that adjusted automatically. We simply forgot about the time change. Being pastors and the shift occurring on a Sunday it might have been catastrophic, but the time we forgot was in the fall, so all we did was to arrive at our first service an hour early. We had a bit of extra time on our hands, but there was no major disruption or embarrassment on our part.
We used to have a few folks who forgot about the time change almost every year. In the spring they’d show up for church as the service was ending. I suppose that sometimes people realized their error and just stayed away from the service, but a few times they wandered into the church to discover that worship was ending, not beginning. At least they could get in on coffee hour.
There is a quirk in the federal law establishing Daylight Savings Time. States can choose to have standard time year round as is the case in Hawaii and Arizona, but they cannot enact year round Daylight Savings Time under current federal law. State legislatures have considered over 700 bills and resolutions to establish year-round daylight savings time as soon as federal law allows it. 21 states currently have laws in place to make that change permanent. In California the shift to year round Daylight Savings Time was authorized by voters. The Sunshine Protection Act that would have allowed states to choose year round Daylight Savings Time passed the US Senate by a unanimous vote in 2022, but it was never taken up in the House of Representatives and so at this time there is no end to the process of changing clocks twice a year. Under current law states can eliminate the change by simply selecting year round standard time, but so far, permanent Daylight Savings Time seems to be the most popular option. I guess that there are very few people in the states that have passed permanent Daylight Savings Time acts who remember how unpopular that idea was in 1974. Maybe we just like having a certain level of confusion about the time.
Being retired, I am much less a slave to the clock than once was the case. I don’t rise by an alarm very often these days. I do set an alarm if I have a morning appointment. I usually set an alarm for Sundays even though we don’t have to be at the church early these days. I find the switch to and from Daylight Savings Time to be a mild irritation, but it really isn’t a problem for me. Our antique clocks are both at the repair shop for cleaning and minor repairs, so I don’t have to set them. I set the clock in the microwave oven and the kitchen range before going to bed. And I’ll set the clocks in the car later this morning. Unlike previous cars, I don’t have to get out the owner’s manual to set them. They’ve made the process easier in newer cars and I’ve heard that there are now some that change automatically just like our cell phones and smart watches do.
I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep. I know I’ll appreciate the extra hour of light in the morning. I like to ride my bike when I get up so I’ll appreciate the 7 am sunrise instead of having to wait until 8 to ride. Then again, it is November in the Pacific Northwest, which means that there will be plenty of days when it is raining at sunrise. I’ll adjust. I’ve been doing it all of my life.
I’ve read that there was significant resistance to the adoption of standard time. People thought of time as being a local phenomenon. When the sun reached its highest point in the sky it was noon. That was different in different places. The thought that the railroad company could tell them what time it was seemed wrong to many. In some places there were two clocks installed in public places, one showing the local time the other showing railroad time. After a while, however, the concept of local time faded and standard time became the way time is understood.
I’m old enough that I can remember before the Uniform Time Act established Daylight Savings Time in the United States as a regular observance. Prior to my time, Daylight Savings Time had been implemented during World War I and also during World War II to implement energy savings. It was called “War Time” by President Franklin Roosevelt. During the energy crisis, the year after I was married, Congress ordered year-round Daylight Savings Time, but public response to it was so negative that it was later repealed. It wasn’t until 2007 that the shifting to Daylight Savings Time on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November became standard. States can opt out of Daylight Savings Time by passing a state law. Hawaii and Arizona do not observe Daylight Savings Time.
I’ve lived most of my life in the Mountain Time Zone. We moved to Chicago, which is in the Central Time Zone for four years and we now have lived in the Western Time Zone for a little over four years. The rest of the time I’ve been a Mountain Time Zone person. There have been some quirks in all of that, however. In 1985 we moved from Hettinger, North Dakota to Boise, Idaho. Both places are in Mountain Time, but the sun rises and sets about 50 minutes later in Boise than in Hettinger. For the decade we lived in Idaho we got in the habit of staying up an hour later than was our usual when we lived in North Dakota and sleeping in an hour later in the morning. Since we moved in the summer, we simply adjusted our clocks to the late sunset. Then, in 1995, we moved from Boise to Rapid City, South Dakota, shifting our clocks back by the same amount. We started going to bed earlier and rising earlier.
While all of that was going on, we were shifting from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time each year. As far as I can remember, I only forgot to set our clocks once. It was when we lived in North Dakota before we had cell phones or clocks that adjusted automatically. We simply forgot about the time change. Being pastors and the shift occurring on a Sunday it might have been catastrophic, but the time we forgot was in the fall, so all we did was to arrive at our first service an hour early. We had a bit of extra time on our hands, but there was no major disruption or embarrassment on our part.
We used to have a few folks who forgot about the time change almost every year. In the spring they’d show up for church as the service was ending. I suppose that sometimes people realized their error and just stayed away from the service, but a few times they wandered into the church to discover that worship was ending, not beginning. At least they could get in on coffee hour.
There is a quirk in the federal law establishing Daylight Savings Time. States can choose to have standard time year round as is the case in Hawaii and Arizona, but they cannot enact year round Daylight Savings Time under current federal law. State legislatures have considered over 700 bills and resolutions to establish year-round daylight savings time as soon as federal law allows it. 21 states currently have laws in place to make that change permanent. In California the shift to year round Daylight Savings Time was authorized by voters. The Sunshine Protection Act that would have allowed states to choose year round Daylight Savings Time passed the US Senate by a unanimous vote in 2022, but it was never taken up in the House of Representatives and so at this time there is no end to the process of changing clocks twice a year. Under current law states can eliminate the change by simply selecting year round standard time, but so far, permanent Daylight Savings Time seems to be the most popular option. I guess that there are very few people in the states that have passed permanent Daylight Savings Time acts who remember how unpopular that idea was in 1974. Maybe we just like having a certain level of confusion about the time.
Being retired, I am much less a slave to the clock than once was the case. I don’t rise by an alarm very often these days. I do set an alarm if I have a morning appointment. I usually set an alarm for Sundays even though we don’t have to be at the church early these days. I find the switch to and from Daylight Savings Time to be a mild irritation, but it really isn’t a problem for me. Our antique clocks are both at the repair shop for cleaning and minor repairs, so I don’t have to set them. I set the clock in the microwave oven and the kitchen range before going to bed. And I’ll set the clocks in the car later this morning. Unlike previous cars, I don’t have to get out the owner’s manual to set them. They’ve made the process easier in newer cars and I’ve heard that there are now some that change automatically just like our cell phones and smart watches do.
I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep. I know I’ll appreciate the extra hour of light in the morning. I like to ride my bike when I get up so I’ll appreciate the 7 am sunrise instead of having to wait until 8 to ride. Then again, it is November in the Pacific Northwest, which means that there will be plenty of days when it is raining at sunrise. I’ll adjust. I’ve been doing it all of my life.
