Oh, Spring is finally around the corner: warmer temperatures, St. Patrick’s Day sales and promotions, and springing forward with daylight savings time. I was never really a fan of moving our clocks and watches forward, being from a time before satellites that automatically changed our times for us, if we possessed that type of technology. I still need to change my clocks on the microwave, my personal watch and my car radio. Having to do this rite is not something I relish.
One other thing I always felt was a bit odd was who and how and why the four time zones and the odd, peculiar way they were set up. I guess Indiana was the worst where a portion of its residents are in eastern time and another percentage are in the central. Idaho isn’t any different except for the caveat that Idaho really should be in the Pacific Time Zone, and I’ll explain my position.
When I moved to Gooding for a short period in 2021, I noticed though we were in the Mountain Time zone in Southern Idaho, the times appeared no different than Pacific though it was just an hour later. In other words, I saw the sun rise around five in the morning, though where I lived in Washington the sun peaked over the horizon at four, but when the sun set at nine or 9:30 in Spokane it was well after ten at night when the sun disappeared.
I think if the government genuinely wanted to make changes that makes sense, remap the time zones. It’s the kind of gerrymandering that no one in this day and age even see as sensical. The other is eliminate changing the clocks altogether. We don’t need a daylight savings time anymore. It messes with our health for one. It messes with how we calculate our rhythms, biological and psychotically for another.
While it does help farmers work harder at harvesting crops later in the evening while the sun is still out, it can easily be argued that the farmers of America merely have to get up earlier. After all, most people don’t want to be outside in the heat of the day if they don’t have to. I would imagine farmers do that for the most part anyway—work until it became too hot and take a siesta until it cooled down.
The other night my local news station begged the argument asking an interesting question. “How will we know to check our smoke alarms if we go to just standard time year-round?” The weather lady or meteorologist suggested setting dates that we all celebrate such as New Years and Independence Day. Sounds good to me, I say.
Jerry Schellhammer 