DST

 

Hayter for March 9 , 2025

“It’s time to delve into earlier times”

            On this year, March 9th turned out to be the first day of Daylight Savings Time (DST). That happens to be the only time of the year when you move your clock forward. It starts at 2:00 Sunday morning. At that very moment two o’clock becomes three o’clock.

That shouldn’t be a problem unless you set your alarm to wake you up at seven a.m., because it’s going to wake you up at eight a.m. Your clock will read seven, but since you forgot to set you clock up an hour, you’re going to be an hour late to church or to whatever appointment you may have had.

Raise your hand if you’re among those who forgot to set their clocks up an hour. -- Ah, well that’s sad. But the good news is that if you move your clock up you won’t be late to work on Monday morning. God is more forgiving than your boss might be.

The question is—“Why did the government decide to make us lose a whole hour of our lives?”  It was done to make the sunlight stick around longer in the evenings. Why is that? Well, it’s supposed to save an hour’s worth of electricity, because when you lose an hour, daylight sticks around for an hour longer than before. The rotation of the earth didn’t speed up. You were simply forced to set your clock up. You see, your clock doesn’t pay attention to the sun. It pays attention to whatever time it’s set on.

Ben Franklin was among the first to come up with the idea of moving time up by an hour. Only he wasn’t concerned about saving electric power, because there wasn’t any at the time. He just thought it was better to save an hours worth of candle wax, by going to bed an hour earlier than usual. Unfortunately, Franklin died the year after Washington was made President, so he was only familiar with the colonies, not the United States. It turned out that the new states had enough problems without messing with their clocks.  

The U.S. did adopt Daylight Savings Time during World Wars I and II. That was so citizens would save fuel for the U.S. by turning off their lanterns or light bulbs an hour earlier than usual. After each of the wars, the states were allowed to choose whether or not to stay with DST. The political figures in some states hated the idea.  

For years the states were in disagreement over what time it was. When carrying on business with a company in a state that doesn’t keep the same time as you, it can get confusing for both parties.

            That was one of the reasons that in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson  came up with the Uniform Time Act which put the nation on DST. The only way a state could get around it was to have an election on the issue. To this day Hawaii and Arizona have remained on Standard Time. On November 2, all states will return to Standard Time. That means we’ll get our lost hour back, because 2:00 a.m. automatically becomes 1:00 a.m. Take my word for it, you’re going to like it.

            I know what you’re thinking. – “Mark, your DST thing was boring as all get out!” -- As an ex-teacher, I can understand your pain. So let me change the topic to something that took place earlier this month. – Hey, sit back down! This may not hurt.

Some remembered that Ash Wednesday fell on March 5^th this year. That’s the day when Catholics and members of a few Christian denominations start a 40 day fast of sorts. Members pick a food that they really enjoy, but promise to quit eating it until the Saturday before Easter. That would make the fast last for about 46 days. However, I read somewhere that you don’t have to fast on Sundays. Again, Catholics and some other Christian churches are involved, but I imagine each differs in their fasting ritual.

Ash Wednesday is the time when members put ashes from burned palm limbs on their finger and make the symbol of a cross on their forehead. Other than the Catholic Church I don’t know which other congregations do that.

Easter falls on April 20 this year, because that’s the date of the first Sunday following the  first full moon of Spring. All of this is tied to the date of the Christ’s crucifixion. Biblical scholars came up with Friday, April 3 of 43A.D. as the date that Jesus was crucified.

Of course, Easter is not celebrated because of Jesus’ death, but because of His body coming back to life on the third day after his death. The holiday itself was not mentioned in scripture, but it was devised a few centuries after His death.

This is a small portion of all of the written information on Ash Wednesday and Easter. There are several thousand other religions in the world. And in each case, all believers of the same relgion have issues with one another. That being said, please try not to get stirred up over my limited research on time and religion. I merely ran across some information that I thought interesting. I fear my writing made it less so.

Next time, I may write about the rising cost of avocadoes. Now that’s something to get upset about.

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