You Earned an Extra Hour Today

My goodness, how the time does fly! Time to turn your clocks back one hour already. Of course, some of my visiting neighbors from Arizona and Hawaii don't have to worry about such nonsense.

That Mr. Benjamin Franklin was the first person to suggest we needed to extend the daylight hours. In 1784, he sat down and wrote a paper saying daylight should be longer to save candles.

Now, before you go thinking I knew old Ben firsthand, let me tell you I'm not that old. Benji didn't pull my pigtails in grade school. Some days I feel more than 200 years old but he was way before my time.

In 1918, daylight-saving time became a national law to help conserve electricity during World War I. When the war ended, daylight-saving time became a local option. This was also before my time, in case you were wondering.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt put the daylight-saving time law back into effect for World War II in 1942. Daylight-saving time was known as "War Time" for the next three years. An old lady never admits her age but I can no longer deny that this was before my time.

It wasn't until 1966 that Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. States had the option of following daylight-saving time but the act established a beginning and end date for daylight-saving time.

The time change has moved around a month or two here and there. In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Act of 2005 that moved daylight-saving time one month earlier in the spring and one week later in the fall, which just began in 2007.

Oh dear. I'm afraid I have gone off on a history lesson.

Instead of talking about the past, let's talk about today. I always change the batteries in my smoke detector when the time changes. An old lady can never be too careful. I'll reward myself afterward with a second cup of tea and a cookie or two with my free hour of time.

What are you going to do with your extra hour?