Sky in Deep River, Connecticut, 5:41 p.m., November 6, 2010
Here is the last sunset of the summer, so to speak. The day after I saw this view out of my kitchen window, I would expect total darkness at the same hour. The latest incarnation of the law governing Daylight Saving Time takes us a week past Halloween with sort-of late sunsets. By the way, former President George W. Bush backed this extension of DST because he hoped it would save energy. There isn’t a lot of evidence one way or another about that. We are Americans who turn on our lights getting up or going to sleep.
Regardless of the clocks, I am always struck at this time of year and again in the late spring how dramatically the length of daylight changes from day to day. We’re rolling down the steep path right now to winter. It’s time to reschedule those outdoor runs to early afternoon. Soak up the intense winter sun. Don’t think you can get out after work. It will be terribly dark. And, on the good side, the mornings here on the East Coast won’t be so dark anymore. I am someone who ought to live in Arizona or Hawaii, where they never have to change clocks at all. I do not adjust well in the spring to Daylight Saving Time, and when I get up tomorrow, I will feel as if I have returned to normalcy.
