Ready or not, Daylight Savings Time is here
Are we ready gardeners? We will be springing our clocks forward this coming Sunday, March 13. We will have a longer late afternoon time to garden, walk, beach or just be happy. I should not leave out the golfers.
This Daylight Saving Time period is not popular with all people. The whole event has had a troublesome past since World War I. At that time, it was tried as a way to save energy. However, there has been a lot of politics involved over the years. Congress just has not been able to leave adjusting, repealing or voting it back in our lives, overriding a presidential veto, when necessary.
A casual time line is when Standard time, in Times Zones was started in the U.S. and Canada by the railroads in 1883. It was not established in U.S. law until an act in March 1918 which also established DST.
DST, which was not too popular, was repelled in 1919, but standard time remained in law. DST then became a more local matter.
Early in World War II, it was reinstated and observed in February from 1942 until 1945.
A Congressional Act of 1966 provided standardization in the date and time, but allowed local area’s exemption.
There were changes in 1974, and during the energy crisis in 1987.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed the ending and starting dates.
Beginning in 2007, DST started the second Sunday of March and ended the first Sunday in November, which will be Nov. 6, 2016.
I recommend that instead of getting up at 2 a.m. this Sunday to set your clock one hour ahead you just do it when you go to bed Saturday night.
The people who do not do this will be late for church the next morning, or a little off timing for their usual round of golf.
At least one president, way back when, did not want to be playing golf an hour later and tried to veto vote.
One of the most prominent reasons for the pro voters for DST was to help out the farmers. The political thinking was to give them more afternoon time for caring for crops. However, the farmers’ lobbying group said no because the farmers needed to get morning crops picked and off to market, fast and early. Also the dairy farmers fumed – it seems that the cows did not take to having their milking times changed.
Some people said it would curb fatal roadway accidents, however studies proved that there was no real change at all and that there were more school bus accidents in the morning.
You just cannot please all of the people all of the time!
There are reports around that maybe we should just stay standard time or DST time and stop fooling around with Mother Nature’s sunshine.
At any rate, you will soon have another hour of evening daylight to do whatever you want to do. You can get out there and plant and dig or set on the lanai with a veggie cocktail and debate with friends about the many follies of our world.
Happy green milkshakes and smoothes to all true Irishman this week, and to all of us who pretend to be Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Till we meet again.
H.I. Jean Shields is a past president of the Garden Club of Cape Coral.