This is being dictated on Friday, November 4, which is the eve of one of the happiest days in my long life.  The happiness comes from the fact that tomorrow evening we will do away with daylight savings time.  For a small while, if the politicians will keep their noses out of this celestial business, we will operate on standard time.  This development makes me supremely happy.
I have never been a fan of daylight savings time.  To start with, there is a contradiction in the title of “daylight savings.”  Scholars have measured the length of days since time immemorial.  The fact is that a day generally consists of 24 hours.  In accordance with the divine plans and the tilt of the Earth during the summer days, daylight lasts somewhat longer.  Conversely, in the winter the days are even shorter.  In Scandinavia for example, during the winter time, there are very limited  daylight hours to save during the normal working hours.
My contention has always been that daylight savings is nothing more than a colossal fraud.  There is no such thing as saving daylight.  The facts of the matter are that when we have sunshine, the days are bright and invariably followed by near total darkness.  It would take a colossal fool to contend that man could save daylight.  I seriously suspect that celestial powers may very well object to man’s intrusive desire to diddle with time.  I do not pretend to be a Biblical scholar, but from what I have read, the thought of daylight savings time never occurred to the writers of the Bible.  Methuselah lived, so the Bible says, for 900 years.  The Bible does not tell us whether those years were lived during daylight savings time.  I know that it is probably unbecoming of me to cite the Bible in support of my argument against daylight savings time but the fact is that nowhere in the Bible is there a mention of daylight savings time.  As I have stated, there is no such thing as saving daylight.
The current crop of daylight savings dates back to the Second World War.  The theory seemed to be that if we came to work earlier, we could get a lot done in support of the war effort.  But those days are past now and it is clear that if we wish to extend the working day there is no prohibition against coming to work an hour earlier.  Or to use my thought about daylight “unsavings” time, we could extend the workday into the evening.  I am distinctly surprised that my arguments about tinkering around with time have not been made more forcefully by evangelical preachers.  I do not wish to tread on the toes of those whose message is divine.  In this case I find myself in total agreement with the ecclesiastical authorities.
But leaving all that aside, tomorrow night we will revert to the way that time has been kept since the clocks were first invented.  I hope you noticed that in that previous sentence I did not say that we should revert back.  If that is what it takes to rid us of the curse of daylight savings time, I am willing to say “revert back” for as long as it takes.  In any event, I will go through the next day in joyful anticipation of reverting to standard time, which is the way I understand that time was kept in Biblical times.  My joy at the demise of daylight savings time is unbounded.  The change in time will take place at 2:00 AM on Sunday morning.  I am not prepared to wait that long for the standard time to take place in this house.  My celebration will start on daylight savings time but once those celebrations are finished, I will wind them up on standard time.  Nothing could be fairer than that.
PS: My father would say and has said that daylight savings “ain’t natural.”  My father and I did not agree on everything but in this case he was absolutely on target.  So it could be said that father and son, both named Ezra Edgar, proclaim daylight savings as “ain’t natural.”
 
E. E. CARR
November 4, 2011
Essay 607(?)
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Kevin’s commentary: I had never heard that explanation for DST before. I had always thought it had to do with farmers or something but upon writing it out it strikes me that that doesn’t make much sense. Farmers get up at ungodly hours anyway and I doubt that they mind very much what time the clock shows when they do it. Ezra’s Essay’s have been a nice little tool for learning lately.
I think the Biblical endorsement is fine but the phrasing is wrong. Instead of simply “the Bible didn’t mention it,” I would have noted that if the undisputed #1 champion bullshit artists from human history didn’t go ahead and make up DST while it was making up all its other crap, that is a pretty good sign of just how silly the convention really is.