It’s the time of the year for the introduction of senseless legislation and just because we live in the Heartland we are not immune.
Kansas Senate Bill 1 introduced by Sen. Kenny Titus, a Wamego Republican who was elected to the senate in November after serving a term in the Kansas House of Representatives, has introduced a bill that would mandate the State of Kansas remain on standard time the year around.
The wisdom of switching back and forth between standard and daylight time has sound arguments on both sides of the issue. But as long as neighboring states make the spring and summer time switches, it makes absolutely no sense for Kansas to be the lone ranger and refuse to make the switch.
To refuse will create unwarranted confusion.
I’m old enough to remember when some states did and some didn’t. The outcome was not good.
I’m thankful to live in an area where all my neighbors observe the same time, daylight approximately half the year and standard the other half. I’m already eagerly anticipating the arrival of daylight time on the second Sunday in March which this year will be March 9. It will take a few days to adjust my sleep pattern but it will be well worth it. I don’t mind going to work in the dark but I sure hate to go home in the dark.
I once had a friend who refused to make the switch. She kept her watch on standard time the year around and made life unnecessarily difficult. For example, whenever she was told the time of a meeting, she would ask, “Is that standard or daylight time.”
And I remember the brothers who each wore two wristwatches. I was told they had one set to daylight time and one on standard time.
Several months ago I purchased a marvelous digital clock. It is easy to ready, tells me time, temperature and barometric pressure, and never runs fast or slow because it somehow automatically syncs with some atomic time signal.
The only problem is it displays Pacific standard time and is always two hours slow.
This morning I was starving at 10 a.m. and wondering how I would ever make it to the noon lunch time. Then I remembered 10 o’clock on that time piece was really 12 o’clock noon where I was. Thankfully, it was about time for my noon food break.
Co-workers have scoffed at my inability to change the clock. More than once they have taken it down from its nail on my south office wall and shown me how easy it is to correct the time only to return the next morning and find after the newspaper office closes for the day, the clock reverts back to the western time zone.
We also have an employee time clock that somehow knows when the switch is made from standard to daylight time, No longer do I need to change its time twice a year.
But if we should change to year around standard time, I’m sure the clock would be mixed up and I would have to struggle learning how to set it.
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