Spring Ahead, Fall Behind

The ritual of changing the clocks is one of the dumbest acts we humans have programmed for ourselves.

In the 1880's, the railroads in North America instituted standard time zones. This seems to me to have been a really good idea, particularly for the railroads. Imaging chugging your big ol' iron horse into Podunk, Iowa, and having the conductor leap to the station platform and pull out his stopwatch to check to see that the train's on time. He notices there isn't a soul in sight to board the train. He walks in to the station, where the station master informs him of the source of his error. "Here in Podunk, we're on Iowa reformed time, yessir, so your train should have been here 37 minutes ago, or we might be waiting for you in an hour or so, unless this is the fourth Tuesday of thresher season., when you were here yesterday."

So we got standard time zones, including Canada, because you know how troublesome those Canadians could be, with their Mounties and their grizzly bears and their mountain men and all.

In 1918 the Standard Time Act was established and daylight savings time came with it. It was so popular that the act was repealed in 1919. Daylight savings time became a "local matter".

In February 1942 daylight savings time was reinstituted on a national scale, staying in place until September of 1945. For the next twenty years, America would wander through space and time, with no one telling it to change clocks.

Then came 1966 and the Uniform Time Act, stipulating that the clocks would go back and forth on the last Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October. Except where local custom prevailed.

Then came the energy crisis. In response to widespread gas shortages, increasing prices and long lines at the pump, our American Congress responded with earlier starting dates for daylight savings time. In 1974, when there was no gasoline to put in your Chrysler Cordoba with the soft Corinthian leather upholstery, daylight savings time began on January 6. Hip-hip, hooray!? Hold on, there, Ricardo. That didn't solve everything, so daylight savings time was changed to February 23 for 1975. Huzzah!? No.

In 1976 we went back to the April dates. We disco'd on.

In 1986, another revelation occurred. It seems we had the start date wrong (oh, no!), so that date was revised to the first Sunday of April for 1987. The ending date, thankfully, was unchanged, to the relief of the nation.

For nearly twenty years this appeared to be the solution (I'm sorry, I don't recall what the problem was/is, but we are all about solutions!). Then, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed (and we all know how well that's been going, the whole American National Energy Policy thing) and it decreed that thou shalt wait until MMVII and changeth the daylight savings timeth to begin on the second Sunday of March and maintaineth this time until the first Sunday in November.

So that's where we're at now in MMVIII, and three billion Chinese don't give a year of the rat's ass what time it is in Podunk where there's still nobody on the train, and you still gotta remember to change all those clocks in your house and your car and maybe your cellphone unless it's automatic and the guy on the Sunday morning polka show will laugh and remind you to fix the Betamax clock, too. Solutions, that's what we're all about here, solutions.

That is all.