Of course daylight is preferable to nighttime, but together they make up one year, and hours lost in one will be gained by the other and since the space that you walk in is yours, either way you’re the winner: less daytime in the evening means more daylight early in the morning. Look at it as being an annual occurence and take it in its stride. Those who live with daylight time don’t grumble too much about this annual change. There are many reasons we would prefer daylight over darkness at such an early hour, but if necessary, there are an equal number of reasons to accept it gladly.
Let’s get the negatives out of the way first, then before we begin our next bad thought, let’s cancel out the negative with positive. This way, when the comparison is over and the questions are in, we are back to where we started, being, neither happy, nor unhappy about neither daylight nor dark, seeing both about equal when the totaling is done. Both have their reasons and since life itself demands adjustments in our action, thoughts and life styles, this is indeed a minor one.
Children have less play after school when the clock has been pushed forward an extra hour in the evening. On the side of the day, they are more rested since probably they, out of boredom, went to bed on time. As an extra note on the pro side, they go to school, if not in clear daylight, a little closer to dawn.
Those who dislike, or are unable to drive as well at night, may find getting home from work a little more frustrating, especially if they get caught in long traffic lines with lights glaring. On the other hand, when they do get home, they will be less inclined to go back out to some extra curricular activity, and they will snuggle up with their family after dinner and enjoy the evening.
Gardeners, who have acclimated themselves to an hour or so gardening, may miss the daylight hours. What they ordinarily did after work on weekdays, has to be postponed to the weekends. On the other side of the garden fence, there is not much going on in the garden at this time of year. The mulching and rose bush trimming, and the cleaning and putting away of garden equipment, can be done on the weekend.
Business owners that stay open until nine may find they have less customers during the darker hours, but this may be the incentive they need to leave the store earlier, and allow employees to take over. Or, looking at it another way, they may find the extra hour of sleep in the morning is bringing in to work more rested and capable employees.
Parents may fret over their little ones having to trick or treat in the dark of night. The children, however, love the excitement of rushing in out of the dark, in their pirate. ghost or goblin costumes and scaring the living daylight out of homeowners. Or in the possible case of scrooges, they can turn out the lights, be quiet as mice, and not answer any of the door bells.
The children however, on the other hand, may be up on their tricks and while not actually overturning their outhouse or soaping the windows, might unwind a roll of toilet paper on their bushes as they leave, or at least dream about it later on. On Halloween, with a stomach full of forbidden sweets and a spook or two prompting, may not be exactly thinking with a full tank of kindness.
All in all, if all the world, or parts of it, never loses anything more than an hour’s of daylight in the fall, they can count themselves extremely lucky.
