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Fall
Back
Now that we're on the verge of falling back into Standard Time -- or "God's time," as some would have it -- the fingers of blame for the senseless exercise called Daylight Saving will soon be wagging again. And, as they have done for more than a century, many of those digits will point "out there" toward the countryside and rural areas where the backward and ignorant farmers who came up with the idea reside. This, of course, is contrary to what I know about Daylight Saving. All the farmers I've met or have heard from on the matter have been pretty much opposed to a scheme that pushes morning chores an hour deeper into darkness in order to afford bankers, doctors and Congressmen an extra hour of golf in the evening. City folk, according to Michael Downing in his history of Daylight Saving Time titled Spring Forward, frequently blame farmers for wanting "more daylight for their chores." But when Daylight Saving was first proposed early in the 20th century farmers were the loudest voices against the idea. |
 Spring Forward The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time by Michael Downing Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005 By the
early 1960s, no
one was in charge of the nation's clocks. Interstate commerce,
communication,
and travel were as discombobulated as they had been prior to the
imposition
of Railroad Time in 1883. The short trip from Steubensville, Ohio, to
Moundsville, West Virginia, became a symbol of the deteriorating
situation.
A bus ride down this thirty-five mile stretch of highway took less than
an hour. But along that route, the local time changed seven times.
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Rural Delivery Commentaries and advice on rural living by Michael Hofferber |