Suwannee Democrat
By Jim Holmes
Well Suwannee County, have you finally adjusted to getting back on Daylight Saving Time?
The older I get, the more difficult it is for me to adjust to making the semi-annual switch. To me, it is kind of like getting jet lag, without the joy of having some airline lose my luggage or being required to partially disrobe among strangers, courtesy of homeland security requirements. (I think the next time I fly, I'm going to wear absolutely nothing but a bathrobe to the airport. On second thought, maybe not. After all, me in the nude might well be considered a form of domestic terrorism.)
At any rate, we are much more time-sensitive today than we once were. In fact, the concept of standardized time zones is really quite recent. During most of our history, "time" was a local issue, based on when the sun came up and when it set. In fact, I've read the reasons so many early public buildings had tower clocks was so local folks could create a standardized time for use in their community. Remember, back in those days, the vast majority of people spent their entire lives within 25 miles of their birthplace, so time differences between towns weren't important.
The US didn't have any standard time zones until 1883 and the concept was not initiated by government, but by US and Canadian railroad companies. They were concerned about increasing efficiency and safety and so they elected to adopt a standardized time system first created by European railroads 40 years earlier. Local communities did not necessarily follow suit. In fact, the city of Detroit operated on its own time zone until 1905!
Ben Franklin gets the credit -- or the blame -- for coming up with the idea of Daylight Saving Time (DST). Ironically, his 1784 essay on the subject was designed to be more humorous than anything else, but he did point out that tons of candle wax would be saved if his idea was adopted.
Daylight Saving Time (It really is Daylight Saving Time and not Daylight Savings Time) wasn't adopted in this country until World War I. Again, we followed a European example, which was implemented to reduce the amount of fuel used to produce electricity. That fuel was needed instead for the war effort.
Rural America -- which was most of the US back then -- went along with the idea to support our boys in uniform, but they hated it. It meant farmers were forced to do many early morning chores in the dark. They kept quiet until Johnny came marching home and then successfully campaigned for the concept to be scrapped. It took World War II and its fuel demands to bring DST back.
By the time WWII was over, the country was much more urbanized and so many of the larger cities decided to adopt DST each summer. In fact, when I was a kid in the early 50s, our television programs originated from a city on DST, while we lived in an adjoining town that remained on Standard Time. The result? Radio and TV shows broadcast after my bedtime were suddenly available an hour earlier. I loved that!
Today, only Hawaii and Arizona don't observe the semi-annual switch ... meaning the "Great American Pastime" on two Monday mornings each year is trying to remember how to change your car's digital dashboard clock, without crashing head-on into another driver, who is busy doing the same!
Jim Holmes lives in Live Oak.
