Seize the Day

Spring ahead; fall back. Under that mnemonic device, the U.S. undergoes its semiannual twitches. Last April at the price of an hour's sleep, the citizen acquired six months of extra sunshine.

Last week, as punctual as autumn, a new notice arrived. Received: an extra 60 minutes in the sheets. Please remit two seasons of gloom.

The onset of standard time comes like some Calvinist retribution, the sudden blue hour of premature evening when for reasons of custom the nation is condemned to go home in darkness.

Why? Some religious groups and small farmers, who use the bright morning hours while the rest of the world sleeps, still lobby for standard time, a position shared perhaps by urban muggers. But some European countries have tried constant daylight time without any sinister agricultural, theological or political results. No time, after all, is really "standard." Since Joshua, no one has discovered a way to stop the sun in its tracks. But daylight time does provide a reasonable method of delay, forestalling that Siberian depression; why not have it year round?

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