Daylight Losing Time

It is a beautiful morning indeed.  I'm writing this outside; birds are singing in the trees, the sun is shining through the high branches of the oaks in the back yard.  Sorche and Loretta are playing Busy-Busy Chicken in the garden, still lying fallow in anticipation of the okra, peppers, and tomatoes we will plant in just a few weeks.  A breeze starts up now and again that is perhaps a little chillier than is comfortable, but you know that winter's back is broken, and spring is on its way.

It is one of those rare days between the season when everything is promise.

Damn.

The clocks inside say 9:30, which means it's actually 10:30, because today we start Daylight Savings Time, or else we go off Daylight Savings Time, I forget which.  Daylight Savings was explained to me in third grade along with long division and the exploration of the Hudson.  At the time it seemed a perfectly rational idea, but now I can't remember exactly what the justification is.  I'd have to ask a third grader, I guess.
The problem is I've lost an hour this morning, and an hour of an especially beautiful morning: an hour less of birdsong, an hour less of sunshine and cool breezes.

In the fall, when I set the clock back, Daylight Savings Time seemed like a pretty good deal, but now I realize how I've been rooked.  Did I really need that extra hour when I got it?  There were certain rainy days in February I now recall, and the realization they were an hour longer than they needed to be seems like a pretty raw deal, especially when I have to pay the hour back on a day like today.

I don't want to do away with Daylight Savings Time; I'm sure any third-grade teacher would tell me it has a valuable purpose, but why do we have to sacrifice an hour in the season when an hour is most precious.  Therefore I suggest a new technique, instead of setting our clocks forward an hour, we set them twenty-three hours back.  It would still be 10:38 instead of 9:38 as the clocks inside the house claim.  All the third-grade teachers will still get to teach their students the fascinating rationale behind Daylight Saving, but instead of Sunday; it would be Saturday.  I would have a full extra day like this to look forward to.  A boon to mankind.  I don't know whether this proposal should be addressed to the president, congress, or NASA, but let us work together to make it happen.