Daylight saving time Turn,Turn...

Between March 12 and 13 our clocks will click ahead an hour as we spring ahead to observe daylight saving time.

Almost as long as the tradition of springing ahead and falling behind an hour has been observed in the United States it has been a topic that people have had mixed opinions about.

Some will argue that they like the way these changes adjust when the sun rises and sets and the length of the days these changes offer.

Others have argued it is an outdated and illogical practice that actually has negative effects that studies indicate have a negative impact on health.

Some argue that these changes disrupt circadian rhythms which can last for weeks and even have a negative affect on heart health and sleep patterns and its efficiency.

Connections have also been found connecting these changes to increased traffic accidents.

While days inherently get longer and shorter due to the tilt of the Earth relative to the sun, it is believed people have long adjusted how they utilize the daylight hours according to the season.

A popular story goes that Ben Franklin first proposed the idea in 1784, when he served as envoy to France, when he wrote a satirical article suggesting waking up earlier would save on the usage of candles in the summer and gave rise to his proverb that being early to bed and early to rise makes people healthy, wealth and wise.

Other versions of the origins of the practice indicate the changes are beneficial to farmers. Though some sources indicate these stories don’t hold much truth and in some instances farmers lobbied against the practice.

Still others say the changes have an impact on commerce and some studies do indicate that with longer daylight hours more shopping does take place. But in the age of online shopping this may have less bearing than it once did.

In 1918 the United States adopted the practice as did many other countries around the world.

By the 1960s it was common practice in many places and was believed to help conserve energy with longer daylight hours into the evening resulting in less electrical usage for lighting. Though even this has its nay sayers with some studies indicating the energy savings are negligible.

But since then the practice has seen many changes, adjustments and even repeals in some countries including the U.S., with even the date when clocks move forward of backward changing over time.

During the Nixon presidency, the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Act was put in place to address the energy crisis at the time.

This received a great deal of backlash as people complained of commuting and kids going to school in the dark during the winter months and the act was repealed in 1974.

Other countries have also abandoned the practice at various times and Hawaii and Arizona do not observe it at all.

While it is easy to observe that the U.S. Senate rarely agrees on any issue unanimously, a recent proposal to move to making daylight time permanent has received a rare bit of unanimous support. But it must first pass the house and be signed by the president.

If adopted the United States would observe daylight time all year.

As it has throughout its history, no matter if this proposal is signed into law or not, it will likely have its supporters and detractors, but as the world changes and the way we work and shop and live our lives changes, it is at least worth having the discussion about considering other changes such as these to see how practices best fit out lives today.

Today I wonder about all of the people who have lived in this house. What were their lives like? What sadness, what joys were parts of their lives? What memories remain of their time here?

The ghosts of family dinners, school dances, weddings, baptisms, comings and goings, the voices of the old and the laughter of the young, heartbreak and great happiness must remain somewhere.

I clearly remember the 1968 back yard, when young, inexperienced, relatively poor and so hopeful, we moved in with our homemade sofa and refinished dressers and a set of white dinner ware that I had bought at Grants. There were two Rose of Sharon bushes on the hill and four peonies where the hill touched the black top that covered the area that was once the floor of a garage. According to our neighbor, Mr. Woodford, it had to be taken down because of the springs coming out of that hill that undermined its foundations. We opened up an uninsulated three season porch to the rest of the house with

French doors, flooding the dining room with borrowed light. There was nothing in the yard to filter the sun that streamed in the windows. I dug garden beds and planted flowers in what seemed to be a vast backyard. Some were remembrances of the gardens of my youth, flowers that my mother loved and gooseberries that were a staple in my grandmother’s jams and pies.

When our son was born, the photos show gooseberries in the background behind the little wading pool or the sandbox that sat just outside the backdoor. When he was four, we built an addition to the house, moving out from that porch into most of what was our yard. The four o’clocks and the gooseberries were sacrificed.

When our daughter was born, there was still room for the tiny pools, the child sized wheel barrows and such. How many picnic lunches did we eat on the square redwood table? How many games did we play, snow forts did we build? If I listen hard enough, can I hear adolescent voices calling for sugar and spice cookies or chocolate pudding?

They are long gone, like the flowers and berries, existing only in photos and my memory. I wonder who will care about such pedestrian thoughts? Will they live on as ghosts in the masonry, the woodwork, the everyday life of this house, adding to the power of home and family.

Now, looking through the kitchen window, I see the result of almost fifty years of change. The little patio is no longer shaded by blue spruce, planted as seedlings on the hill where the Rose of Sharon and peonies once lived. They grew in their majestic blue beauty and died in less. The aging birch has spread its branches and taken over for the spruce. The branches dip and sway in the wind, reminding me to be as flexible. Underplantings of ivy, Bishop’s weed and sprinklings of Astilbe have fashioned a woodland-like setting. The area exists in the dappled sunlight that makes its way through the delicate green leaves of the birch. The blacktop is covered with running bond brick softened by mosses and dragon’s blood sedum. A strip of cement that must have been part of the foundation of that long ago garage marks the outside of a slender garden that casts roses up and over the neighbor’s fence. Those wild roses have found the small metal pergola and bench in the northwest corner of the patio and will no doubt fill its arches with blossoms in early July. The new bird feeder, which has successfully thwarted the squirrels’ attempts at larceny, is host to tens of small avian bodies every day. But the squirrels have to eat too, so we’ve tacked a feeder for the family that lives under the neighbor’s playhouse to the trunk of a spruce on the back edge of the yard. It’s lovely place, a garden of a settled older family, a busy life without children in tow.

I wonder too if my daughter will look out on a garden somewhere on some future date, reminiscing as I have about those who have gone before and the memories that still remain. The circle turns.

Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.