How many of you go home after work and hurry to do all your errands so you are in before dark; or you don’t schedule anything at night where you have to drive very far because you don’t see good enough to drive in the dark? If the sun is setting when you get home, are you in for the evening? Twenty years ago, it didn’t matter to me if it was day or night when I drove. I started driving home from Washington D.C., just two cats and me, at three o’clock in the afternoon and drove across Tennessee all night. It was just a little silver Pontiac Sunfire and eighteen wheelers on the highway at 3 a.m. When I hit 40, everything changed. Now my eyes are no longer young, and they can deceive me while driving in the dark. When meeting lights, I sometimes can’t judge distance. If it is dark and raining, I have trouble seeing the white line to stay on the road when I meet cars. I have also had some close calls with suicidal deer and other of God’s critters at night and occasional flooded streets or black ice.
Most people my age and a few years older are still working and many, if not most, have problems with night driving. I bring this up because I have been seeing several Facebook posts of people angry because all four Arkansas Congressmen voted against the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time (DST) year-round, eliminating changing the clocks twice a year. First, I have a big issue with the name of the bill. Sunshine needs no protection, it comes from God and we get as much as we get, no matter what the clocks say.
The one biggest argument I have heard about the bill is that the children can go outside and socialize after school. How many kids are going out and socializing November through February in the majority of the country? If you want your kids to socialize, they could participate in any number of indoor extracurricular activities or lighted outdoor venues. I was in drama and band, and they kept me busy with lots of friends. There are many school and community activities to join. But parents, be honest, most of the children are going to be indoors playing video games anyway.
Some say they don’t want to drive home in the dark. I would much rather commute as the sun is going down and I am wide awake, than in pitch blackness when I just woke up and am still groggy. Thank God for those noisy lines on the sides of the road my mother hates, they have saved my life many times. She should love them if just for that fact.
There have been several reputable scientific studies that have found that living on standard time is healthier because it aligns with our circadian rhythm. Our circadian rhythm follows a roughly 24-hour cycle, (God at work again, making our bodies work along with the earth’s daily rotation) that is important for our health as it influences hormone release, when we feel sleepy or awake, digestion, metabolism, body temperature, and many other body functions both physical and mental. This helps explain why many more heart attacks, strokes, and other serious illnesses occur after the switch to DST each year.
In 1974, the nation tried a permanent DST, and it was a disaster. Children were walking or riding their bikes to school or waiting at bus stops in total darkness. Millions more commuters on the highways an hour earlier meant another hour of danger of accidents by groggy drivers, collisions with animals, and God forbid, children and other pedestrians getting injured or killed.
All of this is bad enough but how much easier would it be for a child predator to hide in the dark where very few can describe them or their vehicle?
Every act of Congress or stroke of the President’s pen carries consequences. Everyone is never going to be satisfied. You want an hour more of sunlight at the end of the day? Well, I want a husband and a cabin in the woods. We don’t always get what we want. You say you will get depressed if it gets dark earlier in the day? I have been depressed for two years. People tell me, the introvert, I just need to get out and make myself meet people and do things, like that will fix depression. You know what fixes it for me. I have hobbies that I enjoy. Find a hobby inside you can’t wait to start an hour earlier every day.
Standard time is called standard time because it is just that; it is the time the world goes by. Here we go again, arrogant Americans thinking it is okay to mess with the natural order of things. The world runs on standard time, why can’t we? We travel, trade and communicate with the rest of the world, why do we have to be the ones to not cooperate with the rest of the world?
If you read my blog post a few years ago when Marco Rubio tried to pull this (that blog no longer exists) you already know my position on this. Let’s keep standard time year-round. Maybe if those of us who stay outside doing manual labor until dark would come inside before 9 pm, we would get more sleep, let our brains, muscles and bones recuperate, spend more time with family and have fewer heart attacks and injuries from heat and fatigue. God gave us a circadian rhythm so that we would wake and sleep with the sun. He never meant for us to awaken four hours before the sun. That takes away from our already diminished rest time.
So, for my sister and brother-in-law, and everyone else who hates when it gets dark outside, I know this won’t be your favorite post, and I am sorry to disappoint your by making some good points against your stance on this topic, but this is my blog and I will speak my mind. BWHAHAHA!!!
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