Musings: Does Daylight Savings feel like 'Twilight Zone'?

We are a society that travels — a lot. We cross oceans and continents and, in the process, many time zones for a couple of days or perhaps weeks, often for pleasure, after which we return to our own time zone, and we don’t seem to be particularly bothered by it.

Time zones themselves are artificial, man-made constructs. They’re not “astronomically correct.” Rather, they exist for purposes of convenience. That’s easily demonstrated by comparing cities at approximately the same latitude within the same time zone. Cleveland and Boston are two such cities, and sunset in these cities differs by about 43 minutes. The only places where clocks are “astronomically correct” are in those locations where the sun is at its highest point at exactly 12 noon.

If we were to eliminate clock changes, people would have issues regardless of whether we choose permanent standard time or permanent Daylight Savings Time.

During the summer, people enjoy the extra hour of daylight in the evening, when the weather is conducive to outdoor activity after work.

During the winter, people want daylight in the morning especially for safety reasons when children are headed to school. Some will complain, others will rejoice.

If we can adjust our clocks for a couple of days or weeks when we travel for pleasure, we certainly can adjust our clocks twice a year to take advantage of extended evening daylight during the summer for recreation and earlier morning daylight during the winter for safety reasons when kids are headed to school.

If we’re going to use the “astronomically correct” argument, then we might as well go back to the era before time zones when train schedules were chaotic because the clock time in every location was slightly different. I can just hear the announcements on the Long Island Rail Road:

“Attention, passengers. This train will stop at Jamaica, where the current local time is 6:02 p.m., Valley Stream, where the current local time is 6 o’clock, Freeport 5:59, Merrick 5:58, Bellmore 5:57.  . . .   ”

— Leonard Cohen, Wantagh