Daylight saving is for the birds!
Jacquie Brasher

My mother can never remember to turn her clocks forward or back. There have been many times when she's been blissfully unaware of the change--until she misses Mass on Sunday. And then she blames everybody for not telling her about it! So I made sure to e-mail her twice to remind her. I'm thinking of starting a petition to plead for the abolishment of Daylight Saving, just to give my mom some semblance of normalcy.

Why do we still have this antiquated custom, anyway? I have never liked it. It's too confusing, all this turning time around. If we were physically going back and forward in time-like in science fiction-it would be worth it. But we're not, so why bother? Besides, we're fooling with Mother Nature and I'm not sure she cares for it, frankly. To make matters worse, next year Daylight Saving will begin earlier and end later. According to infoplease.com, "From 1986 to 2006, Daylight Saving has been the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. But starting in 2007, it will be observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, adding about a month to daylight saving time." A whole month more? Poor Mom won't know if she's literally coming or going.

I remember my first experience with winter weather. I had never seen the beginnings of a sunset at 4:30 p.m. before. It was completely disorienting. Alabama is on Central Time, too, so it always seems to get darker quicker over there. I then could understand how people get depressed so easily in winter. It's a little overwhelming. So, yes, I can see some benefits of "saving daylight," but the notion still bugs me. I mean, it's not as if I can go to a bank and ask to open an account to save daylight. How do you realistically save any part of daylight? That's like bottling fresh air. Did you know that Arizona, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and American Samoa are the only states that don't observe daylight saving? Apparently, they have so much daylight they would give it away if they could. But they can't, which proves my point. I don't know what point exactly, but I do have one.

The extension of daylight saving next year is supposed to save us a lot of money on energy. We will apparently turn on lights later in the day, thus saving the average consumer a few dollars on their bill. Golfers will also have more light to hit more of those tiny white balls into other people's yards. The down side is that small children in some parts of the country will be waiting for school buses in total darkness for longer periods now. I don't think that's such a good thing. I think we should all apologize to Mother Nature for, once again, interfering with her sun and moon.

This year I called and told Mom to write a note to herself that reads "turn clock back one hour" and put it by her bedside clock. She did. And before I hung up I said, "And Mom, destroy that note after you've changed the clock, because knowing you, you'll get up in the morning, see the note and turn the clock back another hour." She laughed heartily and said, "You know me so well!" I guess I should. I've known her all my life.-Jacquie Brasher is senior staff writer for The Forest-Blade and can be reached at jacquie@forest-blade.com

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