Paul O’Malley pointed out to me that this week marks the earliest sunrises Indiana will get under Eastern Daylight Time – About 6:17 a.m. in Lafayette. That means I pretty much always wake up in the dark. That’s just not natural.
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[…] Having grown up in Texas, I am accustomed to daylight savings time, but somehow over the last 20 years of Hoosier living, I grew to accept and love clocks that did not leap and fall. Doug Masson’s recent reflections on the impact of Indiana new improved time keeping system on his life got me thinking about the issue, and looking around, I can see nothing but negatives in my own life. Some things I am missing out on this year: Waking with the sun and biking for an hour on the back roads before the morning commuters start tearing around. Waking with the sun now means, it’s time to get into the office, so my bike stay in the garage. I could ride in the evening, but then my kids are awake (as are the teenage drivers). Eating dinner before 8:00 p.m. I know its our fault, but it just seems too early to sit down to eat. The kids are still playing. I am doing something in the yard. It’s not time for dinner. Because of the above: having my youngest son stay awake through dinner. Watching my kids catch lightning bugs in the backyard. The bugs are still there, but by the time they come out, the kids are in bed. Living between 2 local TV and radio networks (Indianapolis & Dayton) made it easy to catch your shows in the summer: If you missed it the first time, it would “replay” on another channel an hour later.Who knows, maybe I’ll like it in the Winter more. […]
I like it that the birds aren’t waking me up at 4 a.m. THAT isn’t natural.
That ought to prompt you to go out and shoot all the birds. There’s nothing so natural as the hunter and the hunted.
:-)
Now, do I have this straight, the birds were annoying J by causing him to wake early, so now we’ve outsmarted the birds for J’s benefit by rescheduling everything to start earlier so that we all get up before the birds?
I guess I always suspected that DST was for the birds.
Having spent the last week in the Cape Fear, NC area I kept thinking EDT makes more sense there. 5:30 am sunrise, 8:30 pm sunset is a fairly normal routine. The time just doesn’t make sense here! I am ready to do a cousin Eddie thing and kidnap MMM and let him put my 4,6, and 8 year olds to bed one night and see if all the economic benefits are really worth the aggravation. Until Indiana is all in one time zone I don’t see any benefit to this mess.
For the past 45 years Indianapolis has had the latest winter sunrises of any city its size in the country. Now we will have the latest sunrises all year.
Sorry, this is as good as it is going to get.
Indianapolis sunrises
June 11-17 6:16
July 16 6:30
Aug. 18 7:00
Sept. 19 7:30
Oct. 20 8:00
School starts around Aug. 18 when the sun rises at 7:00. This means many kids will go to school in the dark until next May. And people wonder why the drop out rate is so high and why the students do so poorly on tests.
It is an outrage this condition has been imposed upon us without our consent. We have never had an opportunity to debate the issue in a free and fair manner. None of the candidates for state offices campaigned for EDT. There is not even an appeal procedure available.
Are we really supposed to blame the dropout rate and poor test scores on DST? LOL
I completely understand frustration about not having an appeal process, but …
sunrise/sunset varies a great deal with latitude,so many cities in the South have relatively late summer sunrises,but are compensated by ‘early’ winter sunrises. Here are 3 examples,with summer earliest and winter latest sunrises:
Atlanta 6:27 am 7:38 am
Tallahassee 6:34 7:32
Ft Lauderdale 6:27 7:08
I too miss my 5:30 a.m. (EST) bike rides and now can hardly keep the kids up “late” enough for star gazing or hauling out the telescope for looking at the planets and summer sky. The “late” sunsets are bad enough, but for us amateur astronomers the sky isn’t dark enough, or stable enough, for good viewing until well past “10:00 p.m.”.
And I think I’ve said it before here, but given that Indiana EDT aficionados seem obsessed with 10:00 p.m. golf, I can only believe that they have lost all memory of what a little romance was like in their lives.
That takes me back to my days working at the golf course. When I was 13 and 14, I picked up balls from the practice range. I remember when some particularly avid golfer would come out to the range at 8:00 or so. We’d grumble, “Don’t you people have homes! Your families *miss* you.”
I suspect it’s even worse now. I’d hate having to work until 10 or 10:30 shutting down the pro shop.
As a person who would never get up a minute earlier than is necessary to get to work on time, I love EDT. I would happily trade an hour of daylight while I am showering, blow-drying and drinking coffee (or an hour when I am still sleeping) for an hour when I am home relaxed, and can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine or take a long after-dinner walk.
It’s yet another battle in the pervasive war between Morning People and Night Owls. They say there is no zealot like a convert, and I suppose that applies to me. Once, I was a hardcore Night Owl, getting up at 10 – noon, hitting the bars 5 nights a week, going to sleep at 2 a.m. Then a regular job hit. That tamed me somewhat. Then: The Kids. Good by Night Owl. Hello Morning Person.
I used to think that Morning People were insufferable tyrants. Now, I see that they were right all along. Drink the Kool Aid, the early hours are fine!
Seriously though, I enjoy getting in a little quality time in the morning, because if I get it first thing, it’s guaranteed. I can pretty much guarantee the kids won’t get up until 6:30 or 7. Getting them down for bed isn’t such a sure thing.
Well, I just have to add some comments. Because I have a tendency to stay up later than I should, I loved year-round EST. I could get a feel for what time it was when the sun went down. Now, I am always surprised at how late it is when darkness is falling. (There are still some signs of light right now, and it is about 9:45 p.m.) Furthermore, those 5 a.m. (or thereabouts)sunrises in summer made me much more willing to rise and face the day after a good night’s sleep.
Like Mr. Kemp, I live near the Ohio border and loved having our TV and radio shows come on an hour earlier for over half the year. Unlike Mr. Kemp, I rarely took advantage of the later Indianapolis shows, because I liked watching TV earlier in the evening on the Ohio stations adn the basic cable stations. What I wouldn’t give to listen to the BBC from my Ohio radio station at 11:00 p.m. instead of midnight again! :(
Isnt it striking that all the heart-felt commentary on early/late sunrises/sunsets was thrown out by USDOT? It’s just not ‘statistical’ and therefore irrelevant for determining time zone placement. Is this maybe one reason there seems to be so much ‘passionate ambivalence’ on the issue?
We are not talking about time zone placement here, but daylight saving time. DST is strictly an issue for the state legislature’s consideration and if enough people are unhappy, they can take any factor (such as the changing whims of a governor) into consideration.
Of course there are places that are really screwed up by the combination of an out of wack time zone combined with DST. Try this out:
The following information is provided for Nome, Nome (Ca) Borough, Alaska (longitude W165.4, latitude N64.5):
Tuesday 24 October 2006
Alaska Daylight Time
SUN
Begin civil twilight 9:30 a.m.
Sunrise 10:22 a.m.
Sun transit 2:46 p.m.
Sunset 7:08 p.m.
End civil twilight 8:00 p.m.
another example… QUITO, Ecuador,setting on Equator, longest day of the year now.. sunrise 6:11 am/sunset 6:18 pm. DST wouldnt make much difference in Quito!
In a recent article in the Washington Times Hearld Martin County attorney Dave Lett along with the two Martin county commissioners who voted to re-petition for EDT (one of which we already voted out in the primary and we`ll get the other one when he runs)had a tele- conference with other area counties and a DOT REP.(probably Brian Elson) to tell them how to re-petition the article goes on to state a change back would not happen until this Spring if at all.The GOV. has stated he will do what he can to get the counties on EDT.I hope the DOT does not listen to him again.Central time supporters, and there are alot,will be ready to fight this if the DOT issues a NPRM it may not do any good but there will be another side presented.Martin counties petition will be all about Crane needing to function on EDT which is a bunch of crap!They`ve been technically operating on Central for almost 7 months a year for over thirty years.Hardly anyone who works at Crane from Martin,Daviess and Dubois counties are complaining it`s the around 3000 who work there from the EDT time counties who are whining.Here in Loogootee on June 21 if we were on EDT counting twilight it would not be dark until around 10:00pm this is not natural.A science teacher in Knox county made a sun dial and true noon there was 11:50 am Central time enough said!I know the DOT rejects these geographical arguments but I think they should be considered.
I think Mr. Lett has it wrong about the timing for any change. It is highly unlikely (and I believe it would be unprecedented) that the DOT would move counties from Central to Eastern Time in the Spring. Doing so would involve switching from Central Standard to Eastern Daylight, a two hour “leap” forward. The DOT very consistently schedules time zone changes so that the regions involved do not change their clocks. That is, changes to the time zone to the west (e.g. Eastern to Central) occur in the spring to coincide with the switch to daylight saving. The switch from EST to CDT means not having to touch change time. Changes to the time zone to the east occur in the fall (e.g. CDT to EST), and again the regions involved don’t have to touch their clocks.
Why cant Crane simply advance their clocks to operate on ET? Or just put that part of Martin County on ET. School districts have to operate in two time zones,specifically in La Porte/St Joesph counties and in Pulaski/Marshall counties. (Before DST, these school districts would start on one time regime, would have to change to another in October and change back again in April to the summer scehdule)Is the county line division so untouchable? Problems that straddle county lines specifically could be dealt with by meandering the TZ line to include or exclude accordingly. We might even see Wolcott and Remington united into one time zone this way!Township lines might be used as a secondary division.
Exactly right Lou,this has been brought up at the comissioners meetings about the time issue last FEB. and March.The Crane base commander can set the base on EDT if he wants.He told Martin county commissioners president Mike Dant who did not support the move back to Eastern that it did not matter what time zone the base was on as they did business in all time zones.Here`s the problem Martin county employs 600 at Crane,Daviess and Dubois a combined around 500-600 if the base were set to EDT they would then start complaining and since the base is in Martin county our residents would say that is not fair furthermore the base commander says he will follow the Federal mandate.There has been a lot of in fighting at the base between Central and Eastern time county people this issue has divided friends,neighbors and even family members.My sister and brother in law both work at Crane but live in Sullivan county and we fight about this issue.I can not speak about the northern part of the state but this is the most divisive issue to hit southwest Indiana that I can remember and I hope people no matter their party affiliation remember the Governor in two years and do not re-elect this man who along with Troy Woodruff brought this mess upon we hoosiers!Woodruff will be defeated this Fall he won by only 193 votes last time!
Phillip,
Thats interesting commentary about Martin County/Crane. Im kind of an outsider except I became fascinated with the whole debate through this blog and now am learning Indiana politics as a side bar. But, I very well be relocating to Indianapolis from out-of-state,so I do have a personal interest also.It’s all so emotional and no one is willing to play ‘small ball’ to solve any time issues. It’s always a matter of ‘gaining territory’ for one TZ, or blaming someone politically,or plotting strategies against the other side.That’s why I believe these county spokesmen repetitioning to go back to ET,when they say they ‘lied’ to go to CT.People WANT what they WANT and it’s all predetermined and it’s a matter of making a list for USDOT that they will accept.I dont mean to be disprespectful of either advocacy,but it’s like a ‘culture war’ You absolutely have to be a HOOSIER to fully understand all this. ( And I wouldnt hold my breath for USDOT to change back any time boundaries very soon anywhere..They must be fit to be tied!)
Right again Lou,each group has good points.My point has always been the Evansville connection and since I work outside I like the early sunrises you get with Central time especially in the summer when it so HOT AND HUMID around here ie start early quit early and I do not like the idea of 10:00pm daylight.I mean it is not complicated to live in one time zone and work in another either add or subtract 1 hour not complicated but inconveinent for some.When I worked in Evansville every year when they moved back one hour I was a hour ahead from last Sunday in October to first Sunday in April.I could sleep in later but got home later.I didn`t think it was any big deal.My problem is not so much with Eastern time supporters from counties that were moved to Central as it is with these outsiders from Eastern time counties Sullivan,Greene,Monroe and Lawrence telling us we need to change our time zone to accomodate them because they work at Crane that makes me and others mad as hell!!I guess this would look a little silly to someone from another state all this time zone business.