I hope you remembered to set your clocks an hour ahead this past weekend, and if you didn’t, please do.
I used to love when Daylight Savings Time ended and the clocks were set an hour back and it had everything to do with the extra hour of sleep.
However, the more I think about it, the more I think we should set the clocks an hour ahead and keep it that way.
While getting to sleep in that hour (two hours with the time change) on that Sunday in the fall, it is fleeting, after all, eventually, you get used to it and the novelty quickly disappears.
The only thing that becomes noticeable is that it gets dark a lot quicker and that isn’t really something that is beneficial.
If you have a long drive and can only leave in the afternoon, you’re doomed to a dark drive and the waning amount of sunlight only makes it harder to drive – making it easier to run into a deer that might be dashing across the road. It happens.
I was doing some work at the office this past Sunday and was glad to see that the sun was setting later, especially since this weekend had a lot of sunshine.
Setting the clocks back in the fall and ahead in the spring is archaic too if you think about it. The practice is said to have originated with New Zealander George Vernon Hudson, who is said to have valued daylight hours because he liked to collect insects as a hobby and it was a practice that was used by a number of countries during war-time to conserve coal.
Seeing as both the First and Second World Wars are long over and we don’t really use coal anymore, the practice is out of date – don’t get me started on my views on insect collecting.
Daylight Savings Time is antiquated and doesn’t really serve any purpose and what does it really benefit?
Let’s just “Spring Ahead” and stay there.
– Karl Yu is editor of the Grand Forks Gazette