The old coot is out of time. Old Coot Article of 04/20/2022

 The Old Coot is a day person?

By Merlin Lessler

A new conflict in America has been set in motion, a new schism in the fabric of our society. “Day People” versus “Night People.” The House of Representatives passed a bill to permanently keep our clocks set to daylight saving time. The Night People are happy. They want that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day. The Day People are stressed, losing an hour of daylight in the morning. Some of us odd balls, mostly old coots, want “them” to leave things as they are. Our constant rant at every change is, “Leave us alone!”    

 This new conflict just adds to the efforts of the media and politicians to assign us to separate camps, and then nudge us into conflict. Republicans versus Democrats, young versus old, rich versus poor, etc. etc. They feed on it. It keeps them in business.

 Us middle-roaders, independents, want congress to butt out. The time change in the fall and spring is a familiar event that marks the change to a new season. And, it adds some humor to daily life when people forget to reset one of their clocks and arrive too early or too late at an event. A chance to laugh at ourselves. A chance to dig into our automobile manuals and figure out how to reset the clock.

 Even the medical and scientific communities are at odds. One group says that changing the time twice a year causes an increase in cluster headaches, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and male suicides. Really? Don’t people frequently get up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later. Should they stop. It happens all the time. Is it really that lethal? I’m a skeptic. Statistics do lie.

 Other scientists claim that year round daylight saving time is not in sync with our inborn cicada rhythms. They say it’s best to remain on regular time, all through the year. The working population and school kids adjust to changes in wake up times every week, and then sleep in on the weekend. We’re pretty well adapted to change. And, how about the millions of people living at the west border of the time zone they live in; their cicada rhythms are already out of sync. And they seem to be doing OK.

 All I can say, is this battle looming in congress will provide some hysterical entertainment as the seasonal clock resetting topic is debated. We might as well enjoy it. It keeps them from messing up our lives in other ways.

 Send your complaints/comments to mlessler7@gmail.com