Time for us to stop saving daylight

What time is it?

That's a question you'll hear often over the next few weeks. A couple of years ago, Congress — unable to accomplish anything else — decided to change the onslaught of daylight-saving time from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March.

Fair enough ... except that most computers and literally billions of other gadgets are programmed to make the change in April. On April 1 at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. (depending on your perspective), these devices will automatically adjust themselves to daylight-saving time. If you adjust your clocks to "spring forward" on March 11, as Congress instructs, chances are your computer and other devices will spring forward a second time in April. And you had better check your PalmPilot, BlackBerry and other scheduling devices for the next few months to make sure you don't arrive an hour late (or early) for appointments. (Do not use the daylight-saving time excuse to arrive late for church on both March 11 and April 1.)

Too bad Congress didn't do the right thing by admitting daylight-saving time is foolish. No, it's stupid.

Some folks understand. Grandma never changed her clocks. She said the cows didn't have timepieces. (She milked her cows twice a day until she was 90.) And Dad never changed to daylight-saving time either, on the theory that Congress didn't have the power to make him adjust his clocks twice a year. When we called to invite him to Sunday dinner at five, he always said: "Is that five o'clock my time or dummy time?"

Grandma and Dad realized that Congress cannot change the number of hours in a day or the number of hours the sun shines. And children know instinctively that when Mom says it's bedtime but the light outside says it's playtime, Mom's clock is out of whack.

Benjamin Franklin first proposed changing clocks in order to save candles. (In those days, candles were used for lighting, not to stink up the house.)

Congress responded to Franklin's idea by springing into action in its usual fashion, 150 years later, enacting daylight-saving time. By then, Thomas Edison had figured out how to replace candles with electric filaments. Most homes had only one or two windup clocks that had to be tinkered with every day, anyway. Clock radios did not exist. (Everyone knew Jack Benny came on at 7 on Sunday evening.) There were no VCRs, timed ovens, programmed thermostats, microwaves or other devices with built-in clocks. Few automobiles had clocks, because none of them kept time accurately anyway (until the Japanese introduced cars with digital clocks after World War II).