That Time Of The Year

Sundown is moving rapidly toward 7 PM in these parts.  It’s dark when I go to work now.  You know what’s coming.  I’ve complained about it before.

Standard Time.

Or as I call it, Substandard Time.  A time when it’s still dark when you go to work, but the only daylight you get to see is the fifteen minutes at night you’re stuck on a bus or in traffic.  The sun’s gone by the time you get home.

A lot of people decry Daylight Savings Time, usually because you lose an hour of sleep once a year.  I say, “Who cares?”  It’s not worth that extra hour in the fall to go back to Standard Time.  In fact, I hate Standard Time.  It’s always dark then.

Once, back in the 1970′s, they made Daylight Savings a year-long affair.  I’d say we should go back to that, except sunrise would happen at 9 AM here in Cincinnati.  Further north in my old stomping grounds of Cleveland, it’d be even later.

The way Standard Time is handled now is just fine.  It acknowledges that winter is one dark season.  And despite my last name, I don’t like winter at all.  My wife may be a fan of snow, but I’m not.  I’ve slid in a couple of ditches.

But once winter is endured, spring comes again, and the sun is out more than it’s dark.  That’s when I like it best.  It’s worth losing an hour of sleep over.

Standard Time – My Least Favorite Time Of Year

I’ve ranted before about the evils of Standard Time.  Yes, you get one extra hour of sleep in the fall, but then you come home from work after the sun’s gone down.  And morning doesn’t matter much because sunrise is either during or after the morning commute.  So all your free time’s in the dark.

They pushed back the switch to Standard time last year to the first weekend in November, and I can’t argue with it.  A 9AM sunrise is too steep a price to pay for an hour of sunlight after work, and dim sunlight at that.

Similarly, they moved up “spring forward” to March, by which time days have been getting longer anyway.  So now Standard Time is relegated to the coldest, darkest, most miserable time of the year weatherwise anyway.

I couldn’t be happier with the change, except that it’s Indian Summer here in SW Ohio.  Which means no walks in the park after work anymore until March.

At least it’s over this week, after which the temperature plunges into the forties ahead of the holiday season.  I’ll just wait patiently for the return of Daylight Savings and sunny evenings.