DID YOU SPRING FORWARD LAST NIGHT?

Daylight time has its fans, foes

By Leanne Italie
Associated Press

Posted: Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010

NEW YORK - Turning clocks ahead for spring is a ritual some people love to hate. We're groggy. Our kids are cranky. While sitting better than fall's theft of afternoon daylight, still we grumble. Does anybody have anything nice to say about daylight saving time?

New York City's Camilla Brooks does. She celebrated early with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. "I get a little giddy," she said. "I think I touch into that child-self that looks forward to running and playing in the park."

For weeks, Erika Blanchard of Myrtle Beach, has been counting down to Sunday's start on her Facebook page.

Filmmaker Sondra Lowell of Los Angeles loves it, too - so much that she shifted time a week early. "It's like being on vacation every day," she said. "What am I going to do with my extra hour? Nothing. Just nothing. Yay!"

Ben Franklin was an early fan of moving clocks ahead. Imagine, he wrote to a newspaper in 1784, how many candles could be saved if people woke up earlier during warm months.

But the idea didn't come to fruition until World War I, when Germany found that natural light could replace the artificial kind, saving fuel for the war effort, said David Prerau, who wrote "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time."

Now, about 70 countries observe daylight saving in some form, at one time or another, affecting more than 1 billion people, Prerau said. Some of those people hate daylight saving time.

Many live in Indiana, one of those states split between two time zones with a patchwork history of timekeeping. Gov. Mitch Daniels imposed daylight saving statewide in 2008.

"My family is already sick of hearing me complain about DST," bemoaned Heather Sokol, a mother of three in the Indianapolis area.

"First, it's not good for the children - the extra hour of daylight at night means young kids can't get to sleep on time," she said.

Ruby Kamaka, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area said, "I absolutely hate the going back and forth with the clock. It is not healthy for the body. It's like having jet lag without benefit of having traveled."

It never bothers me, I like having more daylight.

I love it, can finally get some things done in the afternoon.

On behalf of all fishing-crazy guys....This is our Graceland!!

Catmanblue wrote:On behalf of all fishing-crazy guys....This is our Graceland!!

I hear ya, ready here also.