Ben Franklin didn#039;t care about my internal alarm clock

Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 20, 2005

OK, ghost of Ben Franklin, enjoy your time in the sun while it lasts. This is your four-month window on my favorites' list then you go to back to the dog house of founding fathers.

No, I am certainly not angry about you &#8220discovering” electricity. And though I might not appreciate you being so friendly with the French, that is not it either. It was your genius idea to create 7 months of agony for my internal clock which cannot be adjusted that has me steaming.

Those three little words - Daylight Saving Time - confuses and confounds many, but Mr. Franklin you are off the hook in my book, at least until April when you steal my hour back.

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See, at 2 a.m. Oct. 30, we will set our clocks back by one hour. In essence, we will get our bodies back on track to what we have come to know as standard time. I'm not a farmer, why should I have to get up an hour &#8220earlier?” And what exactly are we saving the daylight for? It surely isn't sleep.

Maybe I get too wound up about the whole concept that certainly has good intentions. But I'm a borderline insomniac that just doesn't have enough time in the day for all that needs done. I fight bedtime like a 2-year-old eating sugar straight from the bowl.

Alright, maybe I am being a little facetious. The entire concept, proposed by Franklin and later adopted as a law, was designed to make better use of daylight. We change our clocks during the summer months to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. That is nice. It also saves energy and cuts down on electricity bills. I certainly like that.

I don't like the fact that Daylight Saving Time is not observed everywhere. Does that mean that daylight must not be all that valuable everywhere? Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands must have enough daylight.

Ditto goes for most of the Eastern Time Zone portion of Indiana and almost the entire state of Arizona. I guess when you are in the desert or the Midwest, they are kind of similar, there is nothing to do anyway so what's an extra hour?

OK, so I may just be kidding, but a small part of me is still filled with bitterness those first few spring mornings when the alarm screeches earlier than it really should.

Normally, I awake minutes before the alarm but the time change throws me off.

Though I may understand it and agree that it is valuable, that certainly doesn't mean my body has to like it. My biological clock keeps ticking like normal.

One of Ben's most famous quotes is &#8220If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”

Or you can just devise a plan to mess with everyone for all of eternity. I'll remember you, Ben! Just wait until I see you in the afterlife.

Michael Caldwell is managing editor of The Ironton Tribune. To reach him, call (740) 532-1445 ext. 24 or by e-mail at mike.caldwell@irontontribune.com.