Spring Comes Early

The weather gods apparenly observe the appparently arbitrary comings and goings of daylight savings time. Just in time for that extra hour of evening sun, it was about 90 degrees yesterday, and promises to be warmer still today.

I'm a little uneasy with this manipulation of the daylight savings time, however. We should not be plunged back into darkness in the morning; that kind of thing should stay remain in the cozy autumn and deepest winter where it belongs. And have the timekeeping powers that be really thought through the consequences of extending DST until nearly Thanksgiving? One major American tradition will be noticably affected: Halloween. Around here, sunset usually falls at 5:01 pm on October 31st (yes, I checked an almanac). That means that real darkness is complete around 5:30; shortly thereafter, all the little kids who can't stay up late begin their trick-or-treating. The elementary school aged kids take up the next wave, from about 6:30 to 8:00 pm or so. Then it's time to shut off the lights on the porch and any any other part of the house that faces the street in order to avoid the teens who show up to mooch for free candy dressed pretty much as they dress for school -- piercings and makeup for the boys, underthings as outerthings for the girls. [/oldcoot]

This year, thanks to a sunset that will happen after six o'clock, parents will have the unenviable choice of trying to rein in their preschoolers who are already sugar-addled and are clawing at the door to troll for more sweets, imploring them to wait for dark, or commencing the trick-or-treating in broad daylight, which completely robs the event of its rule-bending excitement (since when does Daddy walk me around the neighborhood dressed as Spiderman? At night? Allowing me to collect candy?).

Plus there is the problem of moving all of the festivities an hour later into the evening. No self-respecting kid wants to trick-or-treat in the light, but it's a school night, so, except for the teen reprobates, the candy collecting cannot wait an extra hour. And thus the fragile balance of the Halloween trick-or-treating schedule will be broken. Toddlers will mix with almost-jaded sixth graders. More parents will be called into action in order to chaperone kids simultaneously rather than sequentially by age. Candy will be spilled, and tears will be shed.

Yet more evidence of the fabric of this great nation being torn asunder. When will it all end?