Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prepare for several months of lasting daylight, a time for enjoyment. Even at my age, I plan to find out how far I can knock a ball.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been practicing with our foreign exchange students, Phaedra Wouters and Ana Granado, now members of the West Las Vegas softball team. And though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun, chasing fly balls that sail over my head gets a bit exhausting.<\/p>\n
But back to Daylight Saving Time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been with us for decades, and I wonder whether I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the only person on the planet who welcomes it. But don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just as happy when New Mexico returns to Mountain Standard Time. That too has its advantages.<\/p>\n
For about six weeks, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be hearing my wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s diurnal question: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What time is it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 7:30, My Delight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, I mean \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhat time is it really?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And that leaves me the option of giving her the time it was before 2 a.m. Sunday and the time it is now.<\/p>\n
So to distract her, I invoke the name of Calvin \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rusty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Baker, who took over Gordon Jewelers after his father, Calvin Sr., passed away. I told Bonnie to think of all those poor horologists like Rusty, wherever he is, who spend valuable hours resetting every clock in the shop. This time of year, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy, as all we need to do is advance the clocks by one hour.<\/p>\n
On returning to standard time, we need to turn clocks back an hour, so 2 a.m. becomes 1 a.m. But didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t your mommy and mine warn us never to reverse the direction of the hands on the clock or watch? Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an old wives\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tale, but I still remember my homeroom teacher at Immaculate Conception School, Sister Mary Tempus Fugit, warning us that watches broke if turned backwards.<\/p>\n
Our teacher certainly was not preaching to the choir; in fact, I suspect only a couple of students in fourth grade \u00e2\u20ac\u201d those from the Silk Stocking District around Seventh and Eighth Streets \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even owned a watch to adjust.<\/p>\n
What is adjusting the time like in the Trujillo household?<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
For even non-clock matters, Bonnie just lets things go if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no man around the house. Running low on gas? Then commandeer the car that Art drives. Need to adjust your wristwatch? Let Art do it. And if the husband of the house isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t available for winding or pumping, Bonnie will simply wait until the end of DST, or look into trading in the gas-less car for a full one.<\/p>\n
My mother, the late Marie Trujillo, regularly offered me $20 to reset not only the clock in her Chevy Cavalier (an operation that requires a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in engineering and the patience of Job).<\/p>\n
That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t simply a process of inserting a pen tip into an opening, but of summoning all the signs of the zodiac, using lightning-quick reflexes and hoping we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d succeeded. Then came the indoor clocks, one of which refused to be turned back, necessitating going 11 hours forward.<\/p>\n
Of course, I accepted Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s generous tip but that same day would invite her and Dad to a meal at the Flamingo Dining Room, which Mom dubbed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The haunt of the geriatric set.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Though it seems like a simple operation, converting to DST involves not only the original notion of providing an extra hour of evening light and stealing it from the morning, but semantic issues as well. If, for example, a woman is delivering twins around the time change, is it possible for the second-born to be birthed before its sibling?<\/p>\n
Radio stations and other round-the-clock businesses need to provide for employees who are either shorted an hour or expected to work an extra hour, depending on whether people spring forward or fall back.<\/p>\n
Locally, for the next few weeks, people will complain about having to get their bus students ready for school in darkness. Operators of night businesses, including drive-in theaters, may dislike the fact that daylight lasts too long and forces movie patrons to violate curfew. (As if we even had a curfew).<\/p>\n
An aspiring candidate for state office has pledged to do away with DST, if elected. We know of no other platform of this politician and wonder how much traction his campaign can secure on this one-agenda matter.<\/p>\n
Stealing an hour of daylight from the morning and tacking it on to the evening is like the person who developed cold feet as he slept. He cut off a foot of material from the top of the blanket and sewed it to the foot portion.<\/p>\n
Did it work?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Most of us engage in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153phatic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d conversation, which generally carries no real meaning other than to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I see you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Phrases like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it going?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How are you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are commonplace, but does the asker really expect an exchange of information?<\/p>\n
Last week I saw Norma Thornton, a long-time teacher for the West Las Vegas School District. I asked her, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How you doing?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Her response surprised me, as the said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not too bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now what does that mean? Did Norma imply she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been ailing? Could things be better? The double negative in her reply, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ought to translate to a positive, as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fine.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Why then, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t my friend say so? Replies like hers are extremely common, I discovered later in the day as I kept track of responses from everyone I greeted. Well, of those who answered my question, most, as in about 75 percent, used the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Those with a negative in their answer made me want to inquire as to their situation: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is everything OK with you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But that borders on prying, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not any kind of counselor.<\/p>\n
Do you know Norma Thornton? The next time you see her, ask her how she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s betting she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not too bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prepare for several months of lasting daylight, a time for enjoyment. Even at my age, I plan to find out how far I can knock a ball. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been practicing with our foreign exchange students, Phaedra Wouters and Ana Granado, now members of the West Las Vegas softball team. And though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun, chasing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}