Time Change

     Well it has happened again!  Are you readjusted from the change in the time?  That “springing” forward thing always gets in that “WHY did we have to lose an hour” mode!

     Hawaii and Arizona are the two U.S. states that DON’T observe daylight saving time and they seem to be getting by fairly well.  Although if you really want to get confused:  The Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona DOES follow daylight saving time!

     There have been many who have tried for years to get this time change thing stopped!  However, as you can obviously see it has not been successful.  Why did we get ourselves into this irritating situation to begin with?

     According to timeanddate.com you may be a bit surprised.  “While Germany and Austria were the first COUNTRIES to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by eight years.  On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario, today’s Thunder Bay, turned their clocks forward by one hour to start the world’s first DST period.”

     According to their information you can thank New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson and British builder William Willett for the idea of DST in 1895.  However, their ideas differed considerably.  Hudson proposed by means of a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society suggesting a 2-hour shift forward in October and a 2-hour shift back in March.  This idea was never followed through.  Willett however really wanted to mess our minds up because he suggested setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April and then switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September.  We would be playing with our clocks EIGHT times during the year!

     Many have given credit to Benjamin Franklin as being the first to suggest seasonal time changes.  However, according to timeanddate.com concerning this idea from Franklin, they wrote:  “In a letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, which was entitled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light”, Franklin simply suggested that Parisians could economize candle usage by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning.  What’s more:  Franklin meant it as a joke.” 

     Whether you are for or against this time change idea one thing is certain:  It doesn’t matter if you gain an hour or lose an hour, people are going to complain!  But again:  We’re only human.

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"If time changes everything,
why do we have to change time?"