Efforts wasted with daylight savings time

Here we go once again trying to adjust to daylight savings time. As we change our clocks and gnash our teeth, we keep wondering why we seem to be forced to do so twice a year. We also wonder about the logic, or lack thereof, regarding the whole idea of "saving time."

At least one of us does not like to get up in the dark. I had enough of that in my earlier years and decided to enjoy getting up with the sun in the later years. Well, that doesn't work when we set our clocks back an hour. Yes, I guess I could "sleep in," but that would wreck what limited schedule I have set for myself. Arising between 6:00 and 6:30 has been a habit since retirement, and changing that habit for a few months just creates too many upheavals on this corner.

This is the first year, Prissy, my black lab, has been with me to note the shock of getting up before she has finished her long nap. She wasn't sure she was going to move on Monday morning, but when she heard the noise of her breakfast being prepared, she made a slow, sleepy move. She was also unnerved Sunday evening when I put her supper down before she was ready for it. She looked at me as if she should probably call the authorities to report I had lost direction around here.

On the more serious side, we are hearing more and more about the dangers we face during the first couple of weeks of this change. We are more subject than usual to having heart attacks and auto accidents. The latter are apt to happen because people have to get up an hour earlier than usual and don't feel rested; thus, they are apt to go to sleep while driving. The heart attacks may be caused by the desire to work harder in the yard than is necessary thus causing a strain on the heart. Just these two items alone should cause "the powers that be" to take note of what they are doing to the citizenry.

No matter what those people do, they really cannot add another hour to the day. We still have the same twenty-four hour day despite their efforts to convince us that we are saving time. We have a slightly slimmer chance of saving time than of saving money. If we think about what we would have if we were to save time, we might see the lack of logic. Time is not something we can grasp in our hands because it is a bit intangible. Even it we could grab a bucket of time, what would we do with it? We'd probably waste it just as we waste other things and wouldn't even be able to draw interest on it were we to save it.

If just a few of our lawmakers would decide to let us leave our clocks alone, they might be able to pass a law. They might also get more votes than anyone else running. If Arizona can remain on standard time, why can't we?

Lynn Moncus is a Tucumcari resident and can be contacted through the Quay County Sun by calling 575-461-1952.