The New Time

I don’t consider myself a lazy person, but I will say that short of getting up to use the bathroom, this morning was the first time I’ve up before daylight in quite some time! It kills me when I hear people say that they never sleep in, “I’m up at 6:30 seven days a week! I don’t want to sleep my life away”. Let’s just say that I’m not one of those people. I don’t like to sleep really late, but I enjoy getting out of the bed on the weekends whenever I feel like it.

I used to be driven by early appointments with deer and fish. I have to admit that it’s hard to beat watching the sun come up across the lake and listening for the first bird to chirp on a frosty November morning is almost a religious experience, but waking up with no train to catch is…well let’s just say underrated. And…aren’t sunsets are nice too. I would be so tired from getting up early that it would ruin the rest of my day; I don’t want to sleep through the sunset!

I read an interesting article this morning pertaining to the institution of Daylight Saving Time. Ben Franklin was credited with the bright idea that it would save candles if the day had more daylight at the end of it instead of the beginning. I’m sure the deer and fish liked this idea as much as anyone because it made it more difficult for their pursuers to wake that early, but I wonder just how many candles it actually saved. Didn’t people get up at like 3:00 am back in those days? Milk the cow and split a cord of wood before the ten mile hike to work right? You had to get a candlelight start.

But last night as I lie in the bed trying to be tired an hour earlier than usual, I had a thought. I remembered how excited I was before those big fishing trips and how hard it was to sleep the night before. I remembered waking up three or four times checking the clock to be sure I hadn’t over slept the big hunting trip; I remembered the dread I felt for getting up an hour earlier for the “new time”. I decided that maybe it’s not the getting up earlier that makes us so tired, it’s the anticipation and the dread!