There’s
a famous quote from a nameless Native American in response to Daylight Savings
Time:
Only the white
man thinks you can tear a foot off the top of the blanket, sew it to the bottom
of the blanket and come away with a bigger blanket.
It’s
funny, but I’m not in the laughing mood.
Most
people dismiss it as a minor inconvenience, whatever, just a glitch in the
calendar.
But
there’s a small, burgeoning segment of the population that isn’t fooled. Growing stronger and more politically acute
every day, there is a silent renegade minority that sees Daylight Savings Time
for what it really is.
War.
It
started a long, long time ago…in the very beginning of the Agricultural
Revolution…there in the lush and irrigated fields of Mesopotamia…amateur
farmers making rows in the shadows of ziggurats…domesticating the cow, befriending
the dog, taming the seed, pulling the weed and propagating the tuber…the
invention of the Modern Man…since the very cradle of civilization, it’s been an
out-and-out war.
Standardized
time versus solar time. The
industrialist versus the idle. The
trans-tribal commerce versus the neighborly barter.
And
twice a year, the time-punchers and the day-jobbers score a victory…Daylight
Slavings Time.
I
don’t want to start trouble…but I’m suspect.
I really don’t like early sunsets perfectly synchronized to quitting
time. I don’t trust that one bit. I don’t like society and government deciding
that sunlight is more productive in the morning than in the afternoon. And I don’t like big business turning my
clock.
That
means war.
According
to most scholars of the subject, standardized time has been winning the battle ever
since the first World War when it was first decreed the law of the land. It was re-enacted again during the second
World War and it gained even more popularity at the same time our society
started living to the rhythms of the global financial network, the electronic
communication grid, the pocketwatch, and the transportation schedule.
The
commuter versus the ambler. The
time-keeper versus the shadow-watcher.
At the desk and on hold or out to lunch and off the grid. The broker versus the broke.
It’s
war, I tell you.
And it really limits the time I have for
tree-hunting.
Just
when the getting’s getting good.
That’s
why I like to save one pre-approved vacation day for mid-November…some random
day of the week…just punch out, boots on, machines off.
It’s
called hookey. It’s easy to do. I just clock out.
I
clock out and I catch me some color.
Some
good, raw, primary color…
…humming
in the crisp breeze, polished by the blue sky…
…that
rustic, quilted pattern of color we call autumn.
