Fall Back

In military terms, “falling back” is akin to retreating. Professionally—a “fallback” plan is a Plan B...another option when the first option does not work out as anticipated. Fall back can also be thought of as the debris that rains down after an explosion.

Fall back is also what happens when we reverse (by one hour) the time on our clocks in autumn. We “spring ahead” in the spring—“fall back” in the fall. We move into Daylight Savings Time.

My question is...Why?

Now that I am retired from a regular, day job, I don’t think much about those years when I arrived at work in the dark—and left for home in the dark. Long, dark days—gray and overcast in Ohio—were depressing but hardly unexpected. Now that I’m retired, I enjoy daylight at my leisure, and I don’t desperately yearn for good-weather weekends (as opposed to rainy, dreary, too cold, too hot Saturdays and Sundays) when I can run errands and have a little fun without work hanging over me.

Still...turning the clocks back is an exercise that causes me more than a little irritability. For days after DST comes into play, I think in terms of “it’s really such-and-such o’clock”—mentally adjusting the time. I do not like early darkness. I want more light.

The day after DST begins, I begin to count the number of minutes of light we are gaining each day. The day after DST, I begin to pine for its springtime reversal.