FALL BACK

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:" (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

This is just a reminder that tonight we "fall back".  Well, to be specific, it happens on Sunday in the very early hours of the morning.  I believe at THIS time change, there are two "2 o'clock in the mornings".  There's a Daylight Saving Time "2 o'clock in the morning" and there's a Standard Time "2 o'clock in the morning".  I believe in the Spring, it's just the opposite.  Then, there IS no "2 o'clock in the morning"- it just goes from 1:59 to 3:00.  Yup, it's confusing.  My understand is that Benjamin Franklin invented this whole Daylight Saving Time thing.  I think it's a nuisance, although I like the Fall turning of the clocks, MUCH better than the Spring turning of the clocks.

I remember that when we were kids and we turned the clocks- especially in the Spring- my very dramatic mother would keep saying things like, "Do you know it's REALLY 7:00?" (when it was 6:00 - stuff like that)... or "On the OTHER time it's 5:30, not 6:30" and I can remember my annoyed brother admonishing her, "Will you STOP that?!"

As an eccentric person, the turning of the clocks is kind of traumatic for me.  No matter how hard I try, there's always SOME clock in a weird place I forget about.  Then, three weeks later, I'll glance at a clock and think, "Why is that clock wrong- OH, I forgot to turn it!"  I also dread certain complicated appliance clocks like the digital clock on our kitchen radio or the microwave clock.  I'll probably be digging out owner's manuals just to try to change some of the clocks...then there are the answering machine clocks!

I realize some really high-tech appliances, especially computers, are programmed to change to the "new" time automatically.  But all that will change in 2007.  Thanks to a law that originated with my Congressman Ed Markey, we'll go on Daylight Saving time EARLIER in the year in 2007 and stay on it later in the year.  But all the automatically programmed stuff will continue to work as if Markey's law had never passed, so there will be some real time confusion for a few weeks in 2007.

In my last entry I mentioned that Dr. Ivor Nicklin is at our church at 10:30 a.m. this Sunday.  Please note that's 10:30 STANDARD time!