Saturday, November 11, 2017

A Modest Proposal

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING

We live in dark times. No, I'm not talking about politics, or North Korean nuclear missiles, or the fact that every single man in a position of power seems to be a lecherous creep. I'm talking about the return of my nemesis, Standard Time. It's been a week since we "fell back"- how are you feeling about it? Me, I hate it.

In southern Maine, where I reside, the sun sets today at 4:22 p.m. Of course, when you live in a land completely covered by a) trees and b) hills, sunset is a pretty fluid concept. The last I usually see of the Helios' chariot (Look, Mom, my liberal arts degree at work!) is four-ish, with blinkered darkness swallowing up everything about ten minutes after the listed sunset. Yes, I know that "Civil Twilight" doesn't end for another hour. I'm pretty sure whoever comes up with those civil twilight designations is taking measurements at the flattest part of the Great Plains, where the tallest thing obscuring the setting sun is a gopher. Or ground hog. Whatever they are out in the golden west.

One of the worst aspects of Standard Time is knowing that the days are getting squeezed from both ends, like a dish towel being wrung dry. Right now we're down to nine hours fifty-one minutes of daylight (keeping in mind those trees and hills blocking the view) and it's all downhill from there. We won't be back to this length of day until February 1st, and at that point, we in New England will likely be entombed with snow and ice. It's difficult to kick back with a cocktail and celebrate the lengthening days when you're trying to make sure the pipes don't freeze in the walls. 

Yes, our friends and neighbors have it worse in Alaska. They count down to five and half hours of daylight at the winter solstice, and I'm pretty sure the giant mountains all over the place means they're actually seeing half of that, in a way not dissimilar to the sun creeping into the cell of the Man in the Iron Mask for a brief interlude. However, Alaskans do have the benefit of a) crazy long days in summer b) the sweet, sweet checks from the Permanent Fund and c) Dana Stabenow.

I have a proposed solution of this unfortunate state of affairs; one now within reach due to the March of Progress. I move we set the official time of sunset at 6pm every evening from October through March. It's true that in the past, our reliance on analog clocks meant that everyone in every time zone had to have their watches set in lockstep, so that, for instance, Lucy and I can look out our windows at five o'clock exactly, but I will see grim leafless darkness and she will see palm trees and sunshine (because her sunset today isn't until 5:42.) But let's be real. How many of us use clocks with hands to tell time anymore? We're all on our phones/tablets/computers, digital devices hooked up to the internet. Correcting two or three or four minutes a day in order to keep sunset always at six is child's play for our tech overlords.

Speaking of children, I can hear your objections. "But Julia," you say. "Think of the kids waiting for the school bus in morning! In the darkness!" In the first place, kids love the dark. You practically have to get them into bed by gunpoint every evening. Think how much they'll enjoy the thrill of being outside beneath the stars during morning recess! Secondly, I'm pretty sure the number of kids who get knocked over by cars while waiting for the school bus is greatly exaggerated. The sun doesn't rise until 10 a.m. in Anchorage in December, and the papers aren't full of stories of Alaskan students getting run over all winter long. To assuage parental fears, I will gladly donate to a fund to equip all students K through 12 with appropriate safety gear. After all, as the proverb says, it's better to light a single LL Bean head lamp than to curse the darkness.


Let us rise up, peoples of the north, and take back our evenings! We have nothing to lose but our seasonally adjusted depression!


36 comments:

  1. Julia, you crack me up! And, yes I agree that greeting the dark at 4:30 p.m. is an unwelcome sight. It means that when I go to my daughter's and visit the grandgirls, I'm on the parkway going home after dark. This parkway is especially dangerous during November and December with the deer out in large numbers.

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  2. I get the whole darkness thing, but I really like the idea of one time for everyone in the country. I don’t want to “spring ahead” and “fall back” . . . I want the clock not to change at all. Both Hawaii and Arizona don’t change back and forth and they seem to be making out just fine . . . .
    [Has anyone noticed that, during Daylight Saving Time, the postings here are an hour off? I can’t for the life of me figure out why, but only during Standard Time do the time of the postings actually match the clock.]

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    1. I suspect changing the posting clock requires a level of technical expertise out of reach of the Reds, Joan.

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  3. I live farther south, so it doesn't get truly dark here until around 6 pm--which just happens to be the time I get off work and have to brave the overcrowded freeways of Dallas. Not fun. On the other hand, in the summer, when we really want that sun to go away, it doesn't get dark until 9:30 pm. I know this because I frequently have to back-time summer concerts from the moment when it's dark enough to shoot off fireworks. I really wish we would choose a time system and stay with it. They are all arbitrary anyway, but the transitions from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time and back are so jarring. Maybe, as a pagan, I could petition the government to cut it out on the grounds that it's part of my religious practice to observe the natural lengthening and shortening of the days without all the abrupt, man-made disruptions? Nah. That's sensible, and based on science. Those guys in Washington would never go for it.

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  4. Oh, Julia, thank you! You had me from "Me, I hate it." So many folks say, "But it is so much lighter in the morning." NOT so, the sun rises later and later, creeping right back so that kids who wait for the bus at 6 am are soon in the dark again. And those in Alaska wait in the dark and come home in the dark. Over the year I lived on Kodiak, it seemed so natural for kids to be playing outside at 3 pm, in the dark, or at 10 pm, in the light.
    Still trying to wrap my head around sunset always at 6...why not the more civilized 7:30?

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    1. Sunset at 6 : Sunset at 7:30 is to Affordable Care Act : Universal Health Coverage.

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    2. Julia, just saw this with my Sunday lunch. I can't stop smiling. Thank you.

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  5. Julia, I have always hated standard time! With the darkness comes colder weather, and between the two I feel like I'm in prison for a few months. I don't go out much in the cold weather (can't stay warm enough) and I can't stand staying home and I don't like driving in the dark(cararacts) so you see I have quite a dilemma at this time of year.

    Normally, I bring the trash out to the dumpster when I get home from work. During standard time the trash doesn't get out to the dumpster until the weekend. I don't want to encounter any raccoons waiting for their take-out dinner to arrive, and worse still, I don't want to encounter any skunks. So I'm navigating plastic trash bags in my kitchen for a week.

    DebRo

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  6. One of the best things about being retired is that I rarely have to be anywhere before ten a.m., and it is said I am too old and decrepit to be wondering around outside after dark. So I am content to be solar powered, although that's a bit of an oxymoron living in Western New York. Here the sun sets in early November at the latest and doesn't rise much before April. But that's another story.

    If DST disappeared forever, I would be content. I understand the difference for those of you who must adhere a schedule, often not your own but that of your children, your employer, the garbage collector, your neighbor's howling beagle. This wasn't so much a problem back in the day when few could read, much less tell time, never mind conceive of a clock. Think Stonehenge. Think of the logistical problem of setting THAT clock ahead or back twice a year.

    And we think we got issues.

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    1. For a good many years I lived in Arizona, working on the Navajo Reservation for the PHS/IHS. Although Arizona stays on standard time all year, the federal government observed DST. Local businesses and churches chose one or the other

      So, in Tuba City, there was a hour's time difference between the post office and the bank, the schools and the hospital, one trading post and another, and the Catholics and the Presbyterians.

      One time we, government employees that we were, on DST, invited the proprietors of the Yellow Front Trading Post to dinner. They arrived an hour early. Or was it late? Discombobulating in any case.

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    2. Ann, that's amazing. I'm sure there's a good mystery short story waiting in those details.

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  7. Where I live in NY must be an awful lot like where you are in ME. I have a wooded hill close behind me to the east, delaying sunrise. And in front of me to the west is another hill, early sunset. So I'm pretty much used to a lot of darkness. I just wish they could settle on one time, whether standard or whatever, and leave it alone!

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  8. I hear you, all ye discombobulated, cold, dark Reds! Interestingly enough, I recently saw some graphics that depict what sunrise and sunset times would be and what that would mean in terms of hours of daylight across the US--it would be a win for most of the country if we actually stayed on DST all year round. Like Gigi and Ann pointed out, it's all arbitrary anyhow.

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  9. You're all going to hate me: I have the opposite of seasonal affective disorder. I **love** the darker months! No heat, humidity, or pollen! I can go outside and breathe without getting a sinus infection! I long for these months all summer long. Why curse the darkness when you can light pretty lights? Surround yourself with Christmas lights and candles, cuddle with your critters, and read good books. Hygge, anyone? :)

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    1. I do love Hygge, Cathy. I have my candles and thick knit blankets out already.

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  10. Oh you know me—time constantly confuses me and all I know is —suddenly it’s dark at 430 which is so bizarre.
    I do love the extra hour of sleep. So very much.
    And losing that one is so devastating.
    Coming to you from Crime Bake! Xx

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    1. This is my first time posting. I often read but never write. I just had to chime in on this one. I am an elementary teacher in rural Ohio and am passionate about getting my hour back and would be the first one on the petition to keep it. From the time it changes back in March (instead of the much preferred April) I drag in to school every day and face the exhausted faces of my 28 4th graders. None of us feel rested until summer. Although I thoroughly love Julia's books and am so glad to see her back, I side fully with those in favor of standard time.

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  11. If we only got the extra hour Hank, those of us with pets (or little kids) know it doesn't happen as the powers that be planned it! I love your proposal Julia and will gladly contribute to the lights we are going to string around the kids at bus stops!

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    1. Yes! Penny used to wake me at 6:30. Now she needs to go potty at 5:30.

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  12. Since I'm "retired" I don't have to worry about driving to work in the dark, or driving home in the dark, or whatever. Going from EST in Ohio to CST in Minnesota was an improvement-more daylight! And not too much difference here in Houston. You made me laugh, Julia! I needed it too. Workmen arrived and started banging on our house at seven this morning. I'm all for trying to "normalize" our hours. Like Gigi, I hate having to wait until 9:30 to see fireworks in the summer!

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  13. I can't really complain as I'm in Arizona where it gets dark around 5:30 but I do hate the short days. I don't know how Iceland can be one of the happiest countries if they have five hour days in winter! I'd be too depressed to write.

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  14. I think we Americans tend to forget how far north Britain is. Imagine my shock my first winter in Edinburgh, when it didn't get light until after 9 in the morning and was dark by 3 in the afternoon. And if it was a typically gray Edinburgh winter day, it felt like the sun never came up at all. Talk about seasonal depression!

    If I had my way, we'd stay on standard time all year. I hate the time changes, and I really hate the sun not setting until nearly nine o'clock at midsummer here in Dallas, when you can't wait for the miserably hot day to be over...

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    1. The thing that threw me off when I went to school in London was the way the days got shorter and shorter - but it was much warmer than my upstate-NY-trained mind said it should be. (Not that November in southern England is balmy, by any standards, but it's much milder than the same month in NY's snow belt!

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  15. Oh Julia, you have made a friend in me. I, too, hate the time change and hate living in the dark for half the year. It is amazing how much it affects me -- literally as soon as the time changed, my desire to do ANYTHING after work went to zero. Which seriously puts a crimp in my ability to be a productive and social human being.

    Deb, you are one of my very favorite writers and since I started following this blog I find I rarely disagree with you on any random topic, but on this one I do in a big way. I'd love to do away with the time change as long as it could be in favor of permanent DST.

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  16. I can't imagine living in a place where there are long hours of darkness or sunlight. Ten years ago, when we visited Alaska in July, the sun didn't set until around midnight. That would make me just as batty as endless dark!

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  17. In AZ, we refuse to change our clocks, because we're stubborn like that, plus when the sun is a scorcher you really don't want more of it. We're more like -- Make it go away!

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  18. I am laughing because I have a home in Wallagrass - and I can't wait to get back up there. One More Year!!!! By mid-December we have eight hours of sunlight, well, make that five and three of dusk, but it makes for some delightful writing time. No one is picking off crown of Maine kids either. Somehow everyone copes. Don't know how that kids and school bus rumor got started, and our bus stops usually have a few feet of hard pack snowdrifts surrounding them come the short days. Well, come to think of it, maybe THAT's the secret. The drifts provide protection. Nah - more like the common sense of local drivers.

    Good post Julia! And you'll note no one complains about our nearly fifteen hours of sun in the summer, well, hubs does sometimes object to 4 AM sunrise, but it's a great time to beat the black fly to the garden.

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    1. Kait, I hadn't really realized how big Maine is until the year Youngest went to school in Limestone. The sun set and rose twenty minutes earlier/later for her. I also didn't understand how Aroostook County could be such an agricultural powerhouse way up north - until I realized they get such insanely long days of sunshine every summer. Lucky for you - Ross and I talked about the County as a retirement place, too!

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  19. I don't mind the physical adjustment. I'm a night person. So I generally start getting sleepy at midnight (EST or EDT) I do feel a bit nostalgic for the long days of summer and because I don't drive I am somewhat apprehensive about walking in the early evening. However what gets to me is the computational aspects of what time is it actually. Several years ago I was taking Hebrew lessons where the teachers were all in Israel. I had one class Sunday at 10 ET. So normally the teacher's time was 7 hours later 5 PM by their clock. Later is a relative term because in fact they reached 5 PM earlier than we did. Now their Daylight savings time started in the spring one week later than we did and ended one week before ours did. So for those weeks in spring and fall we were now 6 or 8 hours earlier or later than they. The teachers would always assure us that they would account for the difference and they never did. And invariably we would miss a class in spring and in fall and my brain would always tire trying to figure it all out in real time. My father would always say about anything difficult "Such is life." So that is what I say and make another pot of coffee.

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    1. Or the trickiness when religious observances depend on sunset and sunrise. I have some Muslim friends who can't wait for Ramadan to come around again to the winter months!

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  20. Cracking up! I hate that it's dark at 4. Boo. Great solution.

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  21. I now live in Arizona where the sunset today was 5:30. No complaints as long as I can get enough light for a short evening stroll. The heat of the summer has relaxed and it’s delightful to be outside. Sunsets have been spectacularly colorful lately. I am transplanted from Wisconsin where I experienced those 4:00 sunsets. Driving to school in the morning in the dark and returning in the late afternoon in the dark was very difficult. Depressing. Arizona doesn’t even mess with daylight saving time, so our internal clocks stay on schedule.

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  22. Great post...but I like the time change. Reminds me of eternal beings and to change the battery in my smoke detector.

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  23. Oh Julia, I agree! It's amazing what sunshine and warmth can do for a soul. After 15 years in the Burlington, VT area, we had to move. The excuse was that it was for my husband's job but in reality I think the gray, short and unending winter days did me in and was the ultimate catalyst for the change. We used to live in a sweet neighborhood with kind neighbors but in the winter it would be so dark that the only sight we'd all get of each other was the brief moment between pulling in the driveway and the garage door closing. If Arizona can buck the system, I think the Northern New England states have some great motivation :)

    As a side note, I'm just a few books in to your Clare/Russ series and have dearly enjoyed revisiting the Adirondacks and North Country through your writing. The atmosphere of the place and people are so accurate! When we were in VT, we were active in an Anglican church and you bring back fond memories when you weave the liturgy and opinioned vestry characters (found in all churches, we've discovered!) into your stories...some memories are fond because it's nice to revisit that time, other memories are fond because they're memories and not current :) You've written the living-in-a-glass-bowl situation so well that either you or someone close to you must have gotten to experience it!

    Many blessings as you continue on your new normal. We love your stories but we love you too and know you are much more than your stories... If writing is a great outlet, please continue! If you need more time before the words flow and come to life, please take as much as you need, even if that means you're only writing for personal enjoyment. I know we don't know each other so please forgive the unrequested advice/thoughts if it seems too forward.

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