Are you ready for Daylight Savings Time again? We “spring ahead” at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 13.

Daylight Savings Time is okay; I just hate losing that hour of sleep on March 13.

I know, we’ll get the hour back on November 6 but it still messes me up for a few weeks. I’m not ready for bed at bedtime. I’m not ready to get up at my normal “getting’ up” time. I’m not ready to eat… wait, that’s never a problem.

This wasn’t such a big deal when I was younger. Maybe age is making me less tolerant of change. I have noticed that in other areas of life.

When I was a kid Iowa did not observe DST, though some of our neighboring states did. On a family visit to cousins in Wisconsin the late ’50s, I remember playing outdoors until 10 p.m. when there was still a little daylight left. I liked it!

Though Iowa did not embrace DST until some 60 years ago, it’s nothing new. Benjamin Franklin came up with the idea in 1784 but it wasn’t until World War I that it was finally adopted by the warring nations to save valuable fuel for the war effort.

While the American people adapted to Daylight Time during World War I, America’s livestock did not. The chickens and cows had little regard for what the clocks said and after World War I American farmers persuaded President Wilson to repeal DST and get the nation back to “God’s time.”

Ironically, “God’s time” had already been altered by the establishment of standard time zones in 1883.

Just 40 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt re-established DST for the duration of World War II. When the war ended the nation generally went back to standard time but localities could start and end DST whenever desired. This created confusion throughout the country.

One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone. On one bus route in West Virginia passengers had to change their watches seven times in 35 miles. By 1966 some 100 million Americans were observing DST based on their own local laws.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 on April 12 of that year. The law established that DST begin on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October. States that wanted to be exempt from DST had to pass a state law to that effect.

Though the Uniform Time Act solved a lot of problems, it was not uniformly applauded. Some Iowans, true to our heritage of hating change, were reluctant to embrace DST. An Associated Press story published in March 1967 reported that an Iowan “declared that pushing the clock ahead would soften up the younger generation for communism.”

My paternal grandfather insisted that he wasn’t going to change the clocks in his house when Iowa adopted Daylight Savings Time. And he didn’t. However, after missing some of his favorite radio programs the first few days of DST, Opa gave in and went with the flow.

Like many other things, Congress has messed around with Daylight Savings time over the years. As a result of the energy crisis that started in October 1973, Congress declared that we observe DST from January 6, 1974 to February 23, 1975. The move was highly unpopular because many children had to walk to school in the dark. The nation returned to normal DST dates in 1976.

Daylight Savings Time rules have been amended several times since.

DST proponents brag about all the energy the nation saves because of DST. Research on energy savings is ambiguous and I’m not convinced either. While the clock-adjustment can be beneficial to retailing and sports it can cause problems for farmers and activities tied to “sun time.”

While I enjoy the “extended” daylight during DST I agree with the wise old Native American who said, “Only the Government would think that you can cut off a foot of the top of a blanket sew it on the bottom and think you have a longer blanket.”

Make a note and don’t forget to spring ahead on March 13!