My High School Encounter with Daylight Saving Time
By
James R. Bainter
It was back in my teen years, 1952, when I was in
the 10th grade living in a small
Daylight Saving Time was a city
option during this time. It was a very confusing time. Many people, including
my relatives, shopped in the various adjacent towns in a twenty-mile radius. In
April, of each year, each town would make a decision to either go on Eastern
Daylight Saving Time (EDST) or stay on Eastern Standard Time (EST). So when my
relatives went shopping the first thing I would hear them ask is “I wonder what
time such and such town is on. Do you know?” This was very important item to
know back then because the stores did not stay open late into the evening and
the stores may be closed by the time you arrived if you thought they were on
EST.
The factory for many years had
always told their employee’s, in the spring, to start work an hour earlier in
the morning so that the people could enjoy the extra hour of daylight in the
evening.
In 1952 this marked a year of
change, as this year the factory told their employee’s to set their clocks
ahead one hour Sunday evening before going to bed, EDST had arrived for the
factory employee’s and their families.
Well it didn’t quite work out so
well for the community. Many of the businesses in town had farmers for
customers and the farmers, being independent as they are, decided they were
going to stay on EST along with their cows, pigs, and chickens. Why even one
farmer told me, “Even the corn stays on EST.” It was his way of telling me that
corn has no idea about time zones and hands on a clock, only when the sun rises
and sets.
I worked at one of the local supermarkets after
school and their big customers were farmers, so guess what time their clocks
were on, your right, EST. In fact all stores that had lots of farmer customers
stayed on EST and stores that careered to factory people set their clocks on
EDST.
As for my High School they just didn’t know what to
do at first, since they had a 50/50 mix of farmer/student enrollment. After
much debate and sole searching, so as not to favor anyone or hurt anyone’s
feelings, they set all the school clocks midway between EST and EDST.
I awakened in the morning on DST and on my way to
school set my watch back a half-hour upon arriving at school, so as to be on
time. After school, on my way to the supermarket, I set my watch back another
half-hour so that no farmer would see my watch and think I was “One of those
idiots.” After work on my way home, I
set my watch ahead a full hour so that I would be on our home/factory DST and
not be an idiot at home.
It became quit a battle between the farmer/factory
store owners. Each store window was posted as to the clock setting inside the
business. The factory employee’s would not do business with a “slow time
businesses” and conversely farmers would not do business with “fast time
businesses.” The “TIME” was the first topic of conversation when people met on
Saturday night in town. Saturday nights were always, in the past, happy times
but now the topic of “TIME” made people uneasy and ready to fight and speak
badly of the “wrong timers.”
Everyone in my hometown was relived when fall
arrived so that the whole town could get back on EST. and everyone was ready to
take a “blood oath” to never, ever set their clocks on Daylight Saving Time
again.
Well, I moved to