No time to lose

Help! 

Somebody stole an hour from me while I slept last night! And I don’t have the time to lose!

Give it back!

Adding insult to injury. I have to be reminded of what I've lost as I run around the house resetting all of my clocks. That's just cruel. Crank me out of bed an hour early and leave all of the clean up work to me. Well, I never.....

A bi-partisan bill in the state seeks to eliminate the daylight savings time shifts twice a year. Sponsors of the bill, Rep. Pete Lucido, R-Shelby Township, and Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, cite educational, health and safety issues as the basis for the change, according to an interview on Michigan Public Radio (March 1, 2016)

We’ve been around long enough to remember daylight savings time (DST) taking effect in Michigan, but the process probably escaped us then.

According to Jeremiah Webster on MyMcKinley.com (March 8, 2013), Michigan and Arizona were the first states to exempt themselves from DST in 1967, but the exemption statute was suspended in June of that year when a referendum was invoked. From June 14 until October 1967, Michigan observed DST and did so through 1968. From 1969 – 1972, Michigan did not follow DST. A general election ballot issue, November 1968, sustained the exemption statute by a “close vote.” Michigan has observed DST since 1973.

Whatever the legislature and the grownups were doing at that time, all I remember is that it messed with the schedules of my TV programs. How was I ever going to keep track of the changes on all three channels! (I wasn’t into PBS yet.)

Like most people as well, I thought it had something to do with farming but indeed it has nothing to do with farming. Daylight Savings Time was first adopted to conserve electricity by Germany during World War I (History Channel, March 9, 2012).

But in recent years, studies have found that it no longer saves energy and there is an increase in car accidents and other health issues with each Spring Forward are Fall Back. Michigan Public Radio

Rep. Irwin suggests leaving us in Spring Forward mode to provide summer tourism with longer days to play under the Michigan sun and in its “salt free, shark free, no worries” waters. I say, good plan for those of us with pitchers full of ‘ritas who want the sunsets to last forever.

I can still Spring Forward on my ankles --- for get the knees --- but I’m not much interested anymore in Falling Backwards even if it is on my well padded bee-hind and thankfully not on my achy-breaky joints.

What’s your preference?

HBO’s Last Week Tonight weighs in DST in his “How Is This Still a Thing?” segment