Daylight Saving Time arrives this weekend. Yes, it is very early this year. The Congress decided it would be a good energy conservation measure. A new study indicates that it really doesn't help in the energy conservation department so, maybe, Congress should have conserved their own energy. In the olden days when farmers really needed the extra daylight to work in the fields, it may have made some sense. Oh, by the way, it is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time. It has to do with one word modifying another and, I believe, a dangling participle...which must be painful and make your pants not quite fit right. Maybe we should make it Daylight's Saving Time...personifying Daylight and adding some ownership! Then, again, there is probably some child, born in a commune in Vermont in 1968, who is actually named Daylight so that would get confusing.

It all comes down to it being darker in the morning and lighter in the evening. At 2:00 a.m. on Sunday March 9, the shift takes place. Of course, most folks set their clocks ahead before turning in on Saturday. I start changing the clocks first thing Saturday morning...just to confuse people. It also means you can gain an entire hour just by leaving one room and entering another. Or, if the hour wasn't so good...go the other way and get rid of it. Okay, I'm no H.G. Wells but it as close to time travel as I can get. Yes, it drives my wife crazy but we all need to make sacrifices for the sake of scientific discovery.

With my particular schedule, getting up in the overnight hours...the time changes in Spring and Fall really don't mean a lot. It is a different story for my mom. Ever since I was a little kid, I remember her saying, as the clocks were changed, "Well, I'm going to be tired for the next six months." If you are an early-riser, that new morning darkness is not helpful. If you go to bed early, the extra daylight at night is just annoying. If you have four sons...well, you're probably tired anyway. However, to be fair, I never noticed my mom acting tired, anytime during the year. She was, and is, always in motion. In fact, once, she was in such a hurry to get from the kitchen to the deck, she didn't bother to open the screen door. She just crashed through it. The little kids called her Super Grandma! I'm pretty sure she uses her x-ray vision when playing cards.

Here's the real kicker about this early time shift, it stays this way until the first weekend in November. We get back to normal just before the election. Wait a minute! That's why the politicians did this! They WANT us to be a little sleepy for the next eight months or so! That way we won't be paying alert attention all during the campaign season! AAH-HAA! Where's my time machine? I've got to fix this! Or, maybe, Super Grandma can just do one of those fly- around-the-world-backwards maneuvers and set things right! Wake Up, Super Grandma!