Maybe it's a family thing: I remember visiting my mother's Great Uncle Billy (my grandmother's uncle, he was an old guy) when I was very little. On this one visit, which must have been shortly before Easter that Spring, Uncle Billy had made a Major Life Decision which was twisting my mom and her cousins into knots.
The Origin of Billy Time
Uncle Billy just decided he'd had enough, he was retired and he wasn't going to change the clocks anymore. He'd just go by "Billy Time" in his house. He didn't care that Gunsmoke would be an hour off. (He loved him some Marshall Matt Dillon, this was thought to be a powerful argument advanced by my mother.)
The more they argued, the more he chuckled. I still remember that chuckle with a smile -- coming from a jaw with white and grey stubble covering it, because Uncle Billy didn't always shave in the morning. I remember that he became quite fond of "Billy Time," the phrase became part of the family vernacular (and not always in a good way) and to this day I always remember that we fall back to Billy Time and spring forward from it.
So, here we are leaving Billy Time tomorrow night - only to return sometime next November.
By the way, there's a neat article over at About.Com written by Matt Rosenberg that gives all sorts of background on DST.
I learned that it's "Saving" not "Savings" - who knew? I also learned that it all began back when we were fighting World War I, so factories had more sunshine time to churn stuff out - saved energy costs back then (guess the theory is that it still does).
No comments:
Post a Comment