You might be feeling a little more rested Sunday morning.
You can credit that to the extra hour of sleep you’ll get because of the annual fall back to standard time overnight.
That extra hour of sleep will cost you an hour of daylight Sunday night, though.
On Saturday, sunrise is at 7:39 a.m. and sunset is at 5:54 p.m. On Sunday, it’s 6:40 a.m. for sunrise and 4:53 p.m. for sunset.
If you think that’s bad, in a few weeks on Dec. 1 sunrise is at 7:07 a.m. and sunset is 4:37 p.m.
Some people are OK with this. Others not so much.
The debate fires up each fall and spring when it comes time to adjust time.
Ben Franklin and farmers are often blamed for it, but History.com says that’s wrong on both counts.
Franklin proposed a change in people’s sleep schedules to take advantage of the early morning daylight but did not push for changing time itself, the website reports.
Instead, history.com says, an Englishman in the early 1900s proposed an 80-minute move forward from April to October, but the idea went nowhere.
That is until Germany instituted the practice in April 1916 during World War I to conserve electricity.
The U.S. followed in March 1918 as a wartime measure, much to the chagrin of farmers, history.com says.
Farmers opposed the change because it disrupted work in the fields and even the milking of cows.
The practice stopped in 1919 when Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of a measure to repeal daylight saving time.
The country returned to the time change during World War II, but quickly resumed standard time only following the end of the war.
Until 1966, when the Uniform Time Act was passed standardizing daylight saving time, states and municipalities were free to start and end daylight saving whenever they wanted, leading to a confusing mixture across the country, History.com says.
The Pennsylvania House in April passed a measure that would put Pennsylvania on daylight saving time all year. The bill passed 103-98 and was sent to the Senate for consideration.
USA Today reported 19 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to make daylight saving time permanent if Congress allows such a change: Alabama, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Idaho, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, Delaware, Maine, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, Florida and California.
States can opt to remain on standard time without federal approval, as do Hawaii and most of Arizona. However, states can’t make daylight saving time year-round without Congress allowing that.
You can debate the health and safety factors of making the switch twice a year and whether daylight savings time saves energy, but the early darkness of standard time forces an early end to the day on many people.
And at the end of my day, I’d rather not let the sun go down on me early.
Source: Berkshire mont
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