Posted on 03/07/2020 9:00:07 AM PST by SamAdams76
Starting tomorrow, Sunday, March 8, the days will get one hour longer. No more driving home from work in the dark until October. One extra hour of daylight!
This is one of my favorite times of the year and the first true sign that spring is upon us. Now I will have time to sit outside on my patio after work and watch for signs of the coming summer with a beer in my hand and a steak on the grill.
I just want to give thanks to an otherwise horrible president, Lyndon Johnson, who did do one good thing for the U.S. by signing into law the Daylight Savings Act on April 12, 1966 that gave us an extra hour of daylight from last Sunday of April to the last Sunday of October. Now we did have DST well before 1966 - actually Benjamin Franklin first thought of it - but it was mostly during the summer months and different areas of the country had different rules about it.
Since then, future politicians would dick around with the timing, causing the extra hour of daylight to occur nearly two months sooner and extended the end of DST through first Sunday of November.
The latter, I do not like, because it means that on Halloween night, we are still having the longer days. Now growing up during the 1970s, dark would always come earlier on Halloween, effectively extending the trick-or-treating time for the kids. These days, nobody is really able to get out there trick-or-treating until around 7PM which is disturbingly close to bedtime for the little tots out there. I say move the end of DST back to the last Sunday of October so the kids get to stay out in the dark a little longer. Otherwise, I'm fine with having the longer days begin the first week of March.
It also makes sense to have more darkness in the winter months because it's not like anybody is going to be outside working in their tomato garden or sitting on their decks grilling hamburgers in 20 degree weather. Also, I like the extra darkness in winter because the Christmas lights, which pretty much go from mid November to mid January, look much nicer in the dark.
So anyway, this is a very exciting day for most of us. We get to see the sun set for the last time around 5PM. Starting tomorrow, it won't set until around 6PM and by mid-June, we'll be watching the sunset well past 8:30PM as we bat away mosquitoes and pull another cold one from the cooler.
As you can tell, I'm a big, big advocate of Daylight Savings Time and this is like a holiday for me.
You’re trying to start something, aren’t you.
(Nobody seriously thinks the so-called “daylight savings” is a good idea. Even Ben Franklin knew it was a joke}
I’m happy as many of my vehicles will then be on time.
Who has time to reset all of those clocks?
Standard time has a shorter period of operation than DST, so why bother?
Should vehicles even have clocks?
Meh, for me forward or not forward makes little dif.
However, just pick one d*mned time standard and stick to it.
So by getting up earlier, and going to bed earlier, it seems like it’s staying light out longer?
DST is just putting “early to bed and early to rise” into law. Although I do like 9 pm sunsets in June and July.
+1
I vote for year round DST.
Sucha good flick!
If we increase the number of minutes in daylight hours, and take a corresponding number of minutes from the night time hours, we could have 22 hours of daylight each day!
pathetic vanity
The extra hour of sunlight will burn the crops!
Geez, all these extra hours of daylight has to have a hugh impact on globull warming.
Please no. It’s unhealthy since so many of us work based on a time. I would like to see Trump get behind a single year long time.
Actually it’s a good vanity on a pathetic topic.
I’m on board with that!
I wish they would institute year-round standard time. I hate having to get up in the morning and start my commute when it’s pitch dark.
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