Viewpoint: Where's My Pajamas It's Seven O'Clock

???It all started in 1918. March 19 of that year was the first time the United States participated in Daylight Savings Time.?Early Sunday morning when you switched your clocks, we continued the participation.?

?The concept came from Germany’s practice of changing time to conserve fuel and power with extended daylight hours.?We copied the idea.

?Daylight savings time was so unpopular that it was abolished after World War I; but was allowed to continue on a state-by-state basis.?Confusing.

?On February 9, 1942, Franklin Roosevelt instituted it again. Although he called it “War Time.”?That lasted until September 30, 1945.

?On April 30, 1950, it began in the United States again.?It’s been with us since then. Well, with most of us.

?Currently Arizona and Hawaii and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam do not observe Daylight Savings Time.?In June 2019, Oregon took the first step to eliminating the time change and passed legislation to that effect.?It has not yet gone into effect.

?The reason Oregon hasn’t let their passed legislation go into effect is because California has reached a dead end on the same effort.?Washington, California and Oregon feel that all three need to make the decision at the same time.?Nineteen states would like to keep Daylight Savings Time year around.

?If all three states approve year-round Daylight Savings Time the federal government then gets involved.?Congress would get involved because the current law of the land, the Uniform Time Act, doesn’t allow year-round Daylight Savings Time.?Standard year-round time in Arizona and Hawaii is okay, year-round Daylight Savings Time is not.

?Worldwide, Japan, India and China are the only major industrialized countries that do not observe some form of Daylight Savings Time.

?So, if you are confused right now, we are in Standard Time.?Daylight Savings Time takes place in the summer. I’m not sure how it affects all of you.?I guess if I were to have an opinion it would follow the 19 states that want to be on Daylight Savings Time all of the time.??

?Since we switched back last weekend, here is how it goes in our family.?I am the only early riser in the family.?I generally get up about 6 :00 a.m.?A week ago, it was still dark at 6:00 a.m.?Now at 6:00 a.m. the first vestiges of light are beginning.

?As near as I can tell, I and one neighbor (a school teacher) benefit from it. The rest of the neighborhood sleeps through the first hour (and some of them the second and third hour) of daylight.

?As 3:00 p.m. neared and it began to be dark, I spoke to my son.?He asked why it was getting dark so early. He thought there was supposed to be more sunlight, not less.?I told him there was more sunlight in the morning.?He was crestfallen. He’s not a morning person.

?I ran up the stairs to get something out of the bedroom.?Lori was putting on her pajamas.?She also looked crestfallen.??

?The day was warm for a November day and I decided to grill for our evening meal.?I lit the grill in the rapidly failing light, but with the assistance of my phone I managed to get the meat grilled.

?Lori made a delicious salad.??The correctly done steak and the delicious salad lifted our spirits.?The fact that it was nice enough to grill, put a spring in our step.?We talked of what we wanted to do with the rest of the day.

?We cleaned up the dishes, watched a movie, made plans for the next day and headed for a good night’s sleep. It was 7:30 p.m.?

?We’ll get used to it, again.