Let there be darkness: Time to fall back

October 2012 was the wettest on record in La Grande. Hurricane Sandy carved out a new Atlantic Ocean beachfront somewhere in Pennsylvania Amish country. Social Security is threatened. And the Oregon Ducks football team could win all 12 of its games 100-0 and still not be in the BCS championship.

So what does the federal government do to cheer us up? Makes us turn back our clocks so that when we leave work at 5 in the evening the curtain of night falls minutes later, from now until March.

Sunday morning at 2 it is time to fall back. It’s time to change the 39 clocks in the house, in the car, maybe even in the smart phone.

By then, maybe, finally, not a moment to soon, I’ll be in a better mood. By then the University of Oregon football team will have beaten the Trojan out of USC and be poised to move up from fourth to third in the BCS standings.

In my dreams.

In reality it’s time to get rid of the BCS, the Bowl Championship or Big Crock of Scat Series, where two teams are chosen at the end of the year to play for the national title while 19 other deserving teams go back to sociology class to find out why singles tend to be in poorer physical and mental health than married people or how much culture does it take to make yogurt.

Yes, there’s an election on. Important issues being decided. A president being elected. 

But for me, gaining more light in the evening is nearly as important. I work inside. The office has two small windows. It’s not a haven for Vitamin D.

I like to golf and bike ride — outdoors. And Northeast Oregon is a great place to do both those things. I have yet to talk my wife, the Wonder Woman, in allowing me to golf indoors. She worries about the windows.

The real solution

Maybe the real solution is changing from Pacific Time Zone to Mountain Time Zone so we get an hour more light in the evenings. Of course, moving the time zone would take an act of Congress. Now that is an oxymoron: Act, Congress. As the country slides further into debt, there are no more blue states and red states. All the states are in the red.

I speak from experience. When I lived in South Dakota, I lived on the far western edge of the Central Time Zone. Our softball team could play without lights until 10 at night. When work ended, a curtain did not come down on the day. 

Reach the author at jpetersen@lagrandeobserver. com.