By Lee Scott
The sound of six bells woke me on Sunday morning. Six bells, I thought to myself, is 7:00. Didn’t my spouse just tell me it was only 6:00? I climbed out of bed and went to the kitchen. Sure enough, my battery operated kitchen clock and the ship’s clock on the mantle both said 7:00. That is when it dawned on me. The digital clock sitting on my spouse’s nightstand had already changed back to standard time. In its quest to revert back from Daylight Savings Time it failed to adhere to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which replaced the end of Daylight Savings time from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. (Parents wanted their children to have more sunlight when Trick-or-Treating) I then started to think of those people living in the two states that don’t observe Daylight Savings time, Arizona and Hawaii. They have a similar problem with the digital clocks changing unnecessarily.
As it turns out, we also have this problem with the clock in the spring when it fails to move forward on the second Sunday in March and is waiting until April to change. Instead of throwing out the clock we have just been dealing with this problem. But today, I started to do some research and found that there are a couple of things you can do to “fix” the clock. First, make sure your clock is set on the right setting. (Who knew?) Turns out some of these clocks have a button for what time zone you are in and whether you observe Daylight Savings Time. When I looked into our clock, I found that it did not have a special settings button. I went directly into the manufacturer’s website and discovered the real problem. The clock is just obsolete. It was built prior to the 2006 law and the old Daylight Savings dates were hot wired into the clock. Oh well. When you think of it, it really is not that big of a deal. We only have to wait a week before the time is correct.
But now that I am on the subject, I am reminded of all the clocks in my home and car that do have to be reset on Sunday November 1st as we return to Eastern Standard Time. At least we will have one clock that will not have to be reset.
