Have I gained or lost an hour?
On Sunday our country observed Daylight Savings Time, that almost antiquated ritual whereby we turn our clocks ahead an hour in March, presumably to gain more sunlight as we get set to planting our fields and tending our livestock.
Except I have no fields, nor do I own cattle. In fact, most of the country no longer farms. It is kind of shocking to think that just two percent of the United States is feeding 325 million hungry mouths.
Which is why Daylight Savings really doesn’t make much sense anymore. It’s not as if the cows care what time they are milked. Keep them happy, comfortable and healthy and they’ll continue to produce milk.
No, the ones who suffer from this most horrendous of observances is we humans. I woke up on Sunday thinking it was an hour earlier. Imagine my surprise and disgust when I found out I was waking up not at eight in the morning, but nine.
A whole hour lost. Sadness. Rage. Despair. We’re now several days into it, and my body is still protesting losing that hour of sleep.
Oh sure, I’ll adjust, probably just in time to turn the clocks back an hour in November. It’s estimated that turning the clocks forward and backwards once each year costs the United States several billion dollars in productivity as millions of human bodies protest this change in our sleep patterns.
At some point I am sure we will stop with the Daylight Savings farce, but that will probably be just in time for the glaciers to melt, flooding Canada and sending polar bears crashing headlong into Wisconsin.
The one good thing about this whole thing is that the days are growing longer. Along with it, temps are gradually on the rise. On Sunday the temps even reached the fifties, and true to my word, I wore shorts, displaying pale legs that have turned a shade of lily white that I did not think existed until the weekend.
It felt great to walk outside in sandals and shorts for the first time in months. Well, I suppose I could have done it in the winter, but then I would have suffered from frostbite.
But it did feel wonderful to have the sun beating down on my face with blessed warmth. It’s a sign of things to come, and I am daring to hope that this year, unlike the last two, we will have a spring that arrives on time for once.
It’s not easy to endure the yo-yo effect of Wisconsin’s climate and seasons, nor is it easy to be held in thrall by Father Time, but we are hardy people in Wisconsin, and we shrug our shoulders, wrap our coats around us more tightly and make the best of things.
Seeing snow melt is always a good sign, and after surviving another winter I am grateful for any time that I have, even if it means losing an hour of sleep. M USINGS AND G RUMBLINGS
ROSS PATTERMANN REPORTER
