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Spring forward, Fall back, continue arguing

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

GloriaDColumnist@aol.com

Fort Wayne Reader

2006-02-06


I don’t subscribe to either newspaper, but the person who delivers on my street tossed a J-G on my sidewalk the other day, and I finally got around to looking at it a couple days later. Across the top was a story about which counties will be on Central, and which will be on Eastern time. Some counties didn’t get their choice, which proves that the one thing stupider than Hoosiers is the Federal Government.

What makes sense about the decision is the counties remaining on Central time, which include Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick and Spencer. What DOESN’T make sense are the counties that requested to be on Central time, but are stuck being on Eastern. Those would be St. Joseph, Marshall, Fulton, Cass, Carroll, White, and Lawrence counties. Vermillion and Sullivan, both on the Indiana/Illinois line, are inexplicably on Eastern time, even though they are closer to Chicago than several counties that are on Central time.

If you look at the map, it almost looks like the state was split down the middle in the time zone decision. “Almost,” is a good choice, because the northwest and southwest corners of the state are on Central time, while the counties between them hugging the state line are on Eastern.

Does this make sense to ANYBODY? Why not just draw a line down the middle of the state and everything west of the line goes Central, everything east of the line goes Eastern? It would make more sense than what was decided.

But maybe that’s the point. Indiana is so backwards anyway, why not make sure the entire state isn’t on the same page when it comes to time? We could incorporate this into a tourist draw. We could change the state motto to: “Indiana: Where time stands still, because progress has ground to a halt.” Or: “Indiana: No one knows what time it is -- but no one cares.” How about: “If it’s later than you think, yet everything seems behind the times, welcome to the Hoosier state.”

I guess we’re going to be observing Daylight Savings Time starting in April. This will throw me off in a major way. The garbage pickup in my neighborhood used to be on Monday, which meant I had time on Sunday to do cleaning, relax and then take the garbage out. Years ago, it got changed to Tuesday, and I’ve never gotten used to it. So having to change my clocks will be one more chore. At least I remember the whole “spring forward, fall back thing,” but it’s going to be the end of an era. I remember listening to the radio in the summer and hearing the announcer say, “it’s 8:15, 9:15 in Ohio and Michigan.” No matter what though, observing DST will still mean I’ll be running late most of the time. Having it just be twilight at 10 p.m. means I probably won’t be falling asleep until 1 a.m.

On the other hand, it means going to Cedar Point won’t require having to get up quite as early to get the most out of my day. It was irritating to realize that on certain days, I’d have to leave home at 6 a.m. in order to get to Cedar Point right when it opened.

It also means not having to do that small bit of mental arithmetic to figure out what programs will be on when looking at television listings. Since that’s the only arithmetic I enjoy doing, my dismal math skills will deteriorate further.

I suppose I could write the Federal Government to complain how DST is going to disrupt my life, but they’d probably react the same way the Post Office did when I wrote a complaint letter recently.

But that’s another story.

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Working alarm clocks, pocket calendars and kitchen timers to: GloriaDColumnist@aol.com.

Can’t get enough of Gloria’s wit and wisdom? We know the feeling. Get your fix 24/7 at http://Gloriathecolumnist.tripod.com/edgeofgloria.

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