One of the joys of living in Prescott, Arizona, is not needing to remember the phrase “spring forward, fall back.” Twice a year, while we are enjoying our morning coffee and showing up to church on time, people all over the country are arriving too early or too late for church or work or their breakfast date and trying to remember which buttons to push on the car stereo or the stove to fix the clock.
It’s fun to remember how many things we had to reset each spring and fall. The ancient digital alarm clock sitting on our dresser, for those nights when we can’t sleep and want to stare at its giant red numbers changing slowly until morning. The microwave and stove. Our old coffee maker with the built-in clock for brewing coffee in advance. The car stereo with its cryptic combination of pushing in knobs and twisting them to get to the right menu, the frustrating VCR clock with its tiny buttons. The thermostat with its heating and cooling program. All of our wristwatches. The grandfather clock.
Now my watch, laptop and cellphone update automatically no matter where I am in the world. The VCR is long gone. Our car has a clock that’s easy to figure out and set if it needs to be changed. But even if it wasn’t easy, it doesn’t matter because we live in a state where we don’t have to change a thing. That is, unless you drive north to the Navajo Nation, where they do observe Daylight Saving Time. But then if you cross into the Hopi Reservation, you’re back on Arizona time again.
Time zones in general were a novelty as a kid. I remember family vacations out west when we’d drive past a sign that would say “Entering Mountain Time Zone” and it was exciting, like we were time travelers from the future coming to visit folks in South Dakota who hadn’t experienced what the last hour we just lived through was like just yet. Plus, we could stay up later at the campground and roast a few extra marshmallows over the fire pit before heading into the camper for bed.
Time zones can get tricky when you grow up and move several zones away from where you used to live or work for people in a different one. I’ve been woken out of a deep sleep by friends who have forgotten I am three hours behind them now and not likely to answer my phone at 5 in the morning without sounding panicked and asking them if someone is dead. I’ve also missed a work Zoom call or two when I haven’t updated my meeting reminders to account for my coworkers now being two hours ahead of me instead of one.
I did a little research, and discovered before 1883, there were 144 local time zones in North America. That’s hard to imagine. When railroads began to expand across country, having standardized time zones became critical for scheduling and safety. Daylight Saving Time (DST) and five time zones were officially adopted in 1918, when we entered World War I. DST has come and gone several times over the last century, and has shifted in its start and stop times.
There are a couple of bills in Congress now trying to make the change to Daylight Saving Time permanent. But as long as we live in Prescott, that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about.