SPRING FORWARD? by E. AYERS

For starters we're all saying it wrong. It's daylight saving time and not daylight savings time. Picky, picky people who lay down the grammar rules say that it's saving because saving, in this instance, is an adjective not a verb, therefore we've must use the singular form. Will you remember that ten minutes from now? If you are like me, you won't. So we can all merrily use the wrong form and know that we're in good company because the vast majority say savings.

Many people are under the misconception that it's something we've been doing forever, besides old Ben Franklin started it. WRONG! Old Ben only wanted a change in sleeping schedules. His late nights and early ups were killing him. After imbibing a little too much and not having sufficient time to sleep it off, universally changing sleep times seemed to him to be an excellent thing to do. Sometimes it's very difficult to keep your own advice. Except, it never happened.

Ben Franklin had various people who followed him over the years, championing the concept

of having more light later in the day, thus saving candles. It took WWI for people to adopt the idea of daylight saving time. Germany, the enemy, jumped on it first, April 30, 1916, and then Britain followed calling it "summer time." The USA was a little late coming into the idea. It took until March 31, of 1918 to get around to it. We called it "war time." And it was repealed in 1919.

Since then it's been an on-again off-again sort of thing with the dates varying and politics at the center of it. Some states and cities kept the idea of saving some summer sun. That created havoc for travelers and broadcast companies that serviced wide areas. Check your local listings were sheer havoc if you wanted to watch a favorite TV show and lived in an area that didn't observe but received broadcasts from areas that did.

In the 1970's a study was done showing it only saved about 1% of our nation's energy. In the early 2000's, another study showed it was costing us more than 1% because of the air conditioning usage and gasoline. Apparently the people benefiting from the savings of sunshine are the retailers, tourist connected businesses, and the gasoline companies.

If you travel by train, Amtrak will do everything possible to make certain you arrive on time at your destination. Even if that means stopping on the tracks at 2:00 AM and waiting for an hour so that you arrive at your destination on time. Thank you, Amtrak, for that kindness, but I would rather arrive too early and spend one less hour on the train.

Most of the population of the USA have lived under the concept of springing forward and falling behind for 100 years. Like millions of people, from all over the world, caught in the spring forward time warp, remember the notion of spring forward just cost you an hour of sleep that will take, on average, a week for your body to adjust. It will raise your electrical bill if you use air conditioning. When you pay that higher electrical bill and spend an extra tank full of gasoline, don't forget to thank your political representatives for finding a way to "save" us energy costs. Somehow those good old days are looking better and better. 

Maybe not. They didn't have any air conditioning, running water was dicey, baths were few and far between, and women were expected to wear those long dresses no matter how hot it was.