Supposedly we’ll SPRING FORWARD this Sunday.  That is to say – our clocks will spring forward.  My friend, Jay, said it should be known as the day we FALL BACK …asleep.  But let’s not confuse the issue.

Daylight Savings time begins this Sunday and we set our clocks forward.

Last week we visited my mom in Arizona, and when we called to give her our ETA, we had to remember to take time zones into account. California is on Pacific Standard Time and Arizona is Mountain Standard. We have to move our watches ahead an hour when we cross the state line.  Except during the summer.

If we were going to visit mom next week we’d be on the same time because Arizona doesn’t use Daylight Savings Time.  (Nor does Hawaii)

Just thinking about it makes my head spin! Who came up with this idea in the first place?  I did some poking around, and found out it was Benjamin Franklin.  Well, duh!  What would you expect of the man who came up with the proverb: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”  And it became a law in 1918.

I think everyone has funny stories about oversleeping or being an hour late or an hour early when the time changes, and I hope you’ll comment on this blog and share some of them.

The funniest experience I’ve ever had was soon after John and I got married.  We had just started going to a little tiny church that didn’t have its own building. They met in a borrowed facility at 1:30 in the afternoon, between that church’s scheduled services.  We were pretty excited about it, because the teaching was good, and the people were friendly and it was pleasantly casual. Plus, it was kind of fun to sleep late on a Sunday, and then meander around and have a leisurely morning schedule.

So there we were puttering around in the yard, planting our garden, and pulling some weeds. We had a nice lunch and then went to clean up for church. We planned to get there about 20 minutes early so we could meet some of the people. (You know where this is going, of course.)  We walked in, and the singing was already well underway. We couldn’t understand it. We looked at our watches. We looked at each other. A couple we had met the previous week motioned for us to come and sit with them. I gave the man a questioning look as we settled down next to them.  He leaned over and quietly grinned, “Time change.”

“That’s weird,” I whispered to John, “they changed the time of the service and they didn’t even announce it last week.”