I grew up in the northwest corner of Indiana where Daylight Savings Time is a twice a year irritation. You either love it or hate it.

I was a member of the first high school class to attend all four years of our high school careers in a newly completed school out in the middle of farmland.  Oh, the smell in spring time!  Two neighboring small towns consolidated their school systems and built one high school in between the two towns.  A good idea, right?  Did anyone think about the fact that the two towns were in different time zones???  

The time difference caused me some irritation as it meant school started wicked early for me.  Despite that inconvenience, my friends and I soon learned to use the different time zones to our advantage.  Staying overnight with a friend?  Stay at the person’s house who lives in the time zone that allows you to stay out the latest!  Curfews become a bit fluid when you can go across the street and it’s an hour earlier.  And it’s easy to feign confusion, saying you thought it was midnight at your house, not 1:00 am!  Throw in Daylight Savings Time, and the fun really starts rolling.

Fast forward about fifteen years and I was living in the northeast corner of Indiana, once again in a small Indiana town.  This corner of Indiana did not observe Daylight Savings Time.  We never had to change our clocks!  However, our relatives in Michigan and our relatives in northwest Indiana did spring forward and fall back.  At this point in my life I was married with three children and no longer worried about my own personal curfew, my new challenge was showing up at the correct time!  Is that 2:00 p.m. my time or your time?  And what time is it now at your house?  When you’re in the middle of raising three sons, keeping time zones straight is low on the list of priorities.

My research showed that Canada was the first country to use Daylight Savings Time, beginning in 1908. In Thunder Bay (then Port Arthur), Ontario, clocks were turned forward by one hour on July 1, 1908.  On a side note, Mr. Smith and I spent a couple of nights of our honeymoon in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1978.

As to WHY we have Daylight Savings Time, I grew up with the Hoosier myth that it was so farmers could work in the fields longer, but it was originally enacted to be an energy saver. Studies vary a bit on this, but most have shown it is not an energy saver and in some ways has us using more! 

As with everything in life, some people hate it and some people love it. I am in the “hate it” camp. Springing forward makes me grouchy.  I feel like I’ve had an hour of my day stolen from me.  And it’s stolen from my weekend.  Why not turn the clocks forward on Monday morning at 8:00 am and make it already be 9:00 when I get to the office?  Makes more sense to me.

Mr. Smith takes the brunt of my annoyance.  He knows it’s coming and has learned to just let me ride it out.  This year I’m going to make an effort to take it in stride and listen to Tom Petty.  I’ll put on my party dress and let Mr. Smith buy me a drink.  I did grow up in an Indiana town.

C’est la vie.