As I continue to mourn for the loss of my hour over the weekend, I am further saddened by this obit in the Biloxi Sun Herald:
Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013. … He had a life-long love affair with deviled eggs, Lane cakes, boiled peanuts, Vienna [Vi-e-na] sausages on saltines, his homemade canned fig preserves, pork chops, turnip greens, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread. … As a former government and sociology professor for Gulf Coast Community College, Harry was thoroughly interested in politics and religion and enjoyed watching politicians act like preachers and preachers act like politicians. He was fond of saying a phrase he coined ‘I am not running for political office or trying to get married’ when he was ‘speaking the truth.’ He also took pride in his service during the Korean conflict, serving the rank of corporal—just like Napolean, as he would say. … He despised phonies, his 1969 Volvo (which he also loved), know-it-all Yankees, Southerners who used the words ‘veranda’ and ‘porte cochere’ to put on airs, eating grape leaves, Law and Order (all franchises), cats, and Martha Stewart. In reverse order. He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest….
As Slatest said, no excerpt does it justice, so go read the whole obit.
Sounds like we lost a great man.
Oh, and if you’re still laboring under the delusion that The Devil’s Time is harmless, check out this from the LAT:
Today is one of the most dangerous days of the year — and the onset of daylight saving time is to blame.
Though it began on Sunday, researchers have found the most acute effects occur on the first Monday after clocks spring forward. That’s when about one-fifth of the world’s population is forced to get up and go to school or work one hour earlier than their bodies are used to. (Unlike on Sunday, there’s no option to just sleep in.)
…Here are some of the things they have learned:
* Heart attacks are more likely in the first week after we spring forward….
* Traffic accidents are 8.6% more common…
* Workplace accidents are more common — and more severe…
* The disruption to normal sleep rhythms was blamed for an uptick in suicides among Australian men…
And so forth. It’s time this madness stopped!
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Give me a break, I prefer having the extra hour of daylight when I get home.
Do you also like getting up in the dark?
Been doing it for years, even after the time change… doesn’t bother me in the least. Most productive people I know are in to work before 8:00.
7 or 7:30 daily here. Leave the house by 6:30 every day.
I doubt Brad is even on his way to “the club” for breakfast by 7:30.
Sometimes I am. That’s about when I left the house this morning, and yesterday, too.
But not usually. All those years of working on a morning newspaper wired me for a day that doesn’t end until 8 p.m. Or 9, or 10, or 2 a.m. So I tend to get started later than you early birds.
If afternoon papers had survived, I might have stayed an early riser. The first 10 years of my career were spent on an afternoon paper, which meant I was at work at 5:30 a.m. (when I was the slot man on the copy desk), or at the latest 7 (when I was the news editor).
But working on morning papers from 1985 to 2009 sort of rewired me.
I get to work between 6:45 and 7:00.
I do not like it. It shortens the time between sunset and bedtime and I have things to get done in that time. Inevitably I just end up going to bed later than I want because I’m not done doing stuff because I got started later doing it because my triggers to start doing my evening stuff are geared to the sun and then I get more and more chronically sleep deprived. I don’t like it. I think it is unnecessary.
There are still only 24 hours in a day. If you get home at 6:00 and go to bed at 11:00, what difference does it make? You’re still at home in the evening for 5 hours, it’s not like you lost an hour.
Right, you still are at home 5 hours in the evening, theoretically, but now the ratio of light to dark during those hours is different. Now less of those 5 hours are dark. If you do certain things after it gets dark, you have lost time to do them. Is this not true?
But actually what tends to happen is I get home later too. I tend to stay at work longer in the afternoons because it doesn’t feel as late. So in essence, I am not still getting home “at 6:00”.
So do you want someone to call you at work and tell you it’s time to go home?
You articulate my objections well, Scout.
I really hate it when the sun goes down, and suddenly it’s time for bed. I like there to be a longer period of time between the two…
It’s a good thing you don’t live farther north where it can be after 10:00 during the summer before the sun goes down.
You can always go inside and draw the blinds and put your sleep mask on.
I’d just as soon go to work in the dark–it’s better than coming home in the dark. I’m not going to do anything else at that time. I might prefer to sleep, but my employer has the say on that issue.
Yup, better to go to work in the dark and come home when it’s still light.
I almost had an accident this morning, trying to change the clock in my car. Devil’s Time is very dangerous!
I’m okay with the time change but they should do it a month later so it’s not so dark outside when I get up.
Wasn’t the rationale behind DST that it would save energy? How the heck does it do that in this day and age? I wonder if it ever saved any energy.
It has been a long time, but I remember how annoying time changes are when there are babies and small children in the family. It’s generally agreed that children “do better” on a schedule. Changing the time twice a year certainly interferes greatly.