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“Spring ahead; fall back,” is a dusty old adage, but it does help folks remember to turn their clocks back an hour — at least the clocks that don't automatically re-set.
Digital devices such as smartphones and computers should automatically re-set themselves. And you probably will have to check your manual if you have to re-set the clock in your car.
Firefighters also remind residents that this is a good time to check the batteries in your home's smoke detectors.
On the bright side, we get an extra hour of sleep; on the not-so-bright side, we will be commuting home in the dark in the evening. For folks with seasonal affective disorder, the shorter days could produce moodiness and an overpowering urge for mid-afternoon catnaps.
You can blame Ben Franklin for the twice-a-year clock-changing event, according to National Geographic.
The founding father, scientist, and diplomat, came up with the idea in 1784 — but in a way that deployed his infamous wit.
In a letter to the Journal of Paris, the thrifty Franklin suggested that costly candles could be replaced with free sunlight by having folks rise with the sun and hitting the sack earlier, National Geographic said.
He knew however, that implementing his idea wouldn’t be easy and humorously proposed taxing window shutters and shooting cannons off to rouse folks out of their beds -- well, for the spring ahead part anyway.
Franklin may have been taking on the French for being lazy, but his idea took root and about a 100 years later, New Zealander George Hudson proposed the modern idea of Daylight Saving Time.
Germany and Austria-Hungary implemented it for the first time, nationwide, in the early 1900s, and many countries went on to adopt it – especially, it has been said, during the energy crunch of the 1970s when saving on electric bills was a priority.
If all the clock-changing bugs you, there are places to turn … so to speak.
States and territories that don’t observe Daylight Saving Time include Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, most of Arizona and the Virgin Islands.
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