DAY LIGHT SAVINGS

      Here we are on that special day that most of us like to bitch about. Time change!

     We've had day light savings time for a very long time. At first it was rather sporadic. Some areas or cities had daylight savings time and the next town or city didn't have a change in time. 

     Lately, there were very few areas that did not change time. The province of Saskatchewan has not changed time for a very long time.

    The rest of us just complain about time change. Some want us to go on standard time permanently. Some want us to go on day light savings time permanently. Then there's the province of Newfoundland Canada which goes by the half hour. 

   At one time, time change did not bother me. Now it takes me  few days to get used to the time

    This year there's a new wrinkle in time. Trump keeps saying he will change the time. What it will be changed to , we don't know. When it will be changed is probably not decided. So with Trump , time change is a moving target. 

    Some day, time change will have to be decided. It seems that too many people are unhappy with the spring and fall time changes. 

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

      Well, good old daylight savings time has rolled around once again. If daylight savings time was in a popularity contest it would get close to zero. 

      At one time the change in time did not bother me. I just didn't sense the one hour change ahead or in the fall when we went back to standard time. 

      However, now the time change does bother me. It takes a few days to get used to it. 

     Changing clocks doesn't bother me as the micro Manager changes everything but one and that's because she doesn't know how to do it. 

     Today most of us have a time device which is accurate up to the second. The old wind up clocks would stop and then you were in trouble. You might go a few days with out the time. Once we got phones we could call the central office and get the time.

      Dad always had a grandfather clock. Not the tall one but one that sat on the shelf. One of my brothers is the keeper of grandfather clocks. 

     It was funny going to the old churches as people arrived at times after the service started and sometimes long before the service started. 

    I now hope that we do away with daylight savings time but I don't think it will happen in my life time. 

    Right now I'm trying to fool myself about the time I should go to bed. 

MY OBSESSION

      I consider myself to be a fairly balanced feet on the ground kind of person.

      However, when it comes to the winter solstice and the time immediately before and after, I become overly interested in time. 

     When I was little we did not get daily papers with sun rise and sunset times. I just sensed that the days got shorter and then longer. I did not know how much difference there was. 

     When I got a daily paper sunrise and sunset times were given. 

      Now there are detailed charts on line that give you the times down to the second.

     Dec. 21:   sun rise  8:42 Am : sun set at 4:24 PM. Daylight: 7 hours  41 minutes and 45 seconds  The day got shorter by .05 seconds

      Dec. 31  sunrise at 8:44 and sunset at 4:31. 7 hours 45 minutes and 59 seconds of daylight.   The daytime increased by one minute and one second!

     I watch for these changes as I want to see the light come back again. It's intriguing now that these figure are precise enough that the are calculated in seconds. 

     You can go to a site called timeanddate to see a chart with this info and much more. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

      Before I get carried away and forget I will wish everyone a Happy New Year and a great 2024. 

       However, at the end of the year I start thinking about time and say, "Where ever did the year go?" or "That year sure went by in a hurry." or "That was a short year. " or "The years are getting shorter."

        The older we get , the more we feel that time is going by much faster.

       Well, there's a reason why we think that time is going by much faster.

       On our first year, that is 100% of our life. On our tenth birthday the tenth year is 10% of our whole life at that time. 

        On our 50th year one year is 2% of our whole life. So because each year is less of our life in percentage we feel as if time is going faster. One year is still 365 1/4 days like it's always been. Our sense of time is a little bit deluded.

         For me, the year 2023 was 1.29% of my whole life. 

        I also think back to one of the more important New Years. It was 2000, the coming of a new millennium.

        Remember how stressed we were as to what might happen. Would there be a total break down? The new millennium came and went without total melt down. Now we look back and say, "What was that all about?"

       New Year's Eve in 1964 I met a special little lady who attracted my attention. Here we are 60 years later and still attracting each other's attention. 

😄

KEEPING WITH TIME

     I think that in many cases we have our own routines  with
 time. Some of us are early. Some of us are late. Some of us hurry and some of us dawdle along.

    I am one of those annoying people who has to get to an event early. If church starts at 10:30 , I've got to be sitting down before 10:15.  I get pretty antsy and a little testy if I'm not ahead of the game.

     I'm also one of those people who doesn't set an alarm clock. Since about 1980 , I always get up at 7:00 AM. Even after I retired I still get up at 7:00 AM. I also haven't worn a watch since the day I retired. 

    Now there's someone else in this house who has a completely different pattern of rising from sleep. No, she doesn't sleep in. It's worse than that.

    For about 4 to 6 months , the micro Manager will get up late...8:00 Am. Then for another 4 to 6 months the MM will get up early...6:00 AM. Now I don't care how early you get up. I don't care how late you get up. Just choose one or the other and stick with it. I can adapt my routine either way.

     I often wonder how I can get up at the same time without an alarm clock. I'm starting to wonder if it's about coffee time. My body tells me that at 7:00 AM I need coffee so I get up! Or have I just developed a habit of rising at 7:00 Am over the years.

     I also spent all of my working years watching the clock. When the bell went I had to be finished my lesson and send the kids on. 

    So how many of you have specific habits of keeping time? Do you have to keep a set time routine to be happy?

    So I got thinking about these things after my last post about how time goes by so rapidly.

TIME GOES FASTER THAN I DO.

    On Friday I met a young guy who I hadn't seen for a long time. Well, I should go back and edit my last sentence. He really wasn't a young guy anymore. He floored me by telling me that he would retire from teaching in two years!

    In my teacher years, did I tell you I've been retired for 22 years? , I was a department head for the last 10 years. I was a department head in three different areas. I enjoyed being department head as we were able to work as a group and set  up a standard program in an area. It's much more efficient to work as a group.

    One of the things I got to do from time to time is be part of a committee that interviewed teachers applying for a position. Somebody would go through all the applications for a job and pick out three that we would interview. 

    So here's where I first met "young man." He was one of the three picked for an interview. One applicant was in his 40's and had taught in a rural area. One standard question was how would you teach this lesson? The guy missed it completely. The second applicant was a woman in her 30's who was working on a master's program. We thought she was just looking for a short term position. The kid was 21 and applying for his first job. He nailed the lesson. After the interviews and we were going over things we decided to take the kid. Give him a chance. If he didn't turn out we could let him go as it was a contract but we wanted to take a good look at someone for a permanent contract and this was a chance for us and him. 

    Well, that was 1992. Obviously we kept him. Obviously he could teach. I liked watching him teach as he would involve the kids in the procedure. No just sitting there in a day dream for those kids. They had to participate.

    So the other day when I met "him" I was surprised that for him  retirement was right around the corner.

   Time had really gone by me on this one.

Perspectives

      I was in a classroom teaching before my 19th birthday. I remember very clearly being in a teacher seminar when they were discussing retirement and what the requirements were for full retirement. 

      Now an 18 year old is not going to be able to get his head around retirement. Apparently they were showing teachers a formula that would give them the time when they could retire on full pension. I remember the numbers I got when I used the formula. It was 1958 and I would qualify for full retirement in 1995. Now for an 18 year old kid  in 1958 , 1995 was an impossibly long way off. It was something I could not wrap my head around. I was too busy having fun at the moment.

     Well, time moved on. In fact, time moved on very quickly and 1995 did occur. As time was moving on I seldom thought about retirement. I was too busy. The teaching load was heavy. I was involved with professional development for teachers. I went to every conference I could find. I even went to a conference in Washington D.C. in 1992.

    I did not qualify for full retirement in 1995 but finally retired in 1997. 

    Now time really flies! I've been retired for 19 years. Looking back to the start of retirement seems like yesterday. Looking back to when I was 18 seems like an unbelievably long time ago. It was. It was a very different time. 

     Who could have imagined that when I retired the world would be so much different. Technology changed things. The economy changed our economic status. I taught through the best of times as far as the economy was concerned. 

     I've been fortunate to have a pension and to have defined benefits. What did I know about this as an 18 year old? 

     I  wish that 18 year olds today could look ahead and see the same opportunities that I had.

    So perspectives give one a different point of view.

    Here I am as an 18 year old with my first class. 

    Here I am in the summer of 2016 ...58 years apart.

Millennium Madness: Remember It?

       Recently I have been thinking about the approach of the third millennium and all the hype surrounding it's approach. In the late 1990's more and more was being said and written about the approaching millennium. I'm sure that in back rooms discussion of the upcoming millennium occurred well before the late 90's. 


      Some of the issues reported seemed very practical. The computer issue was obvious. Computers had been inadequately programmed to show dates. So if changes weren't made a whole host of problems would occur with incorrect dates. When it came to legal, business, government and historical issues the possible effects were enormous. Frantic efforts were made to update the computer system to handle the 2000's in dates. Stories on this issue were common and they always emphasized the doubt about the success of changing computer programs. It made for good story telling. Stories abounded about a total computer collapse. So there was tremendous fear mongering. 


    Well, the millennium came and surprise, surprise the world of computers did not end. Nor did the world end.


      Aside from the computer issue there were many other wild stories about the coming of the millennium. The end of the worlders added their two cents worth. There were various groups who had reasons to predict that the end of the world would come. Many other religious groups had discussions as it related to their faith.


     When you think about it it seems like the millennium issue happened only recently. Twelve years have passed since that momentous change from one millennium to another. Slowly the issue has left our minds and it seems like a distant dream. I'm sure someday we will look back and ask what all the fuss was about.

How Our Muscles Age

        I read many excellent posts on aging. Topics covered are health, elder care and the  loss of parents, siblings, children and friends. Volunteering to assist elderly people is another large issue that many people are involved in. People become acutely aware of their aging and begin to think of their own end. People look in the obituaries and start to see that many of the people who die are younger than they are. 


       But there's another  factor I would like to look at. That is the process that gradually happens to our muscles. As we age we become weaker and this brings about difficulties in mobility and participating in daily activities.


      Today I listened to a radio documentary on a 92 year old woman who trains and  competes in all track and field  events. She holds world records in her age category in all track and field events except one. If I considered doing long jump my body would be jarred so severely that I may not be able to move again. This 92 year old trains four or five days a week and travels all over North America to compete. She is compared to someone who would be twenty years younger than her.


      Scientists are interested in this woman to see if there is a gene that allows her to  be so strong at this age. They want to know why she is so very strong while others that age are very weak.


     At about age 75 we lose a large percentage of our strength. Muscles are composed of  particles which are like  "trees". These particles are beside each other head to head and mesh with each other. This is what the process of stretching involves. We stretch the little particles to bring about better use of the whole muscle.  As we age the "trees" move further apart. In our seventies the "trees" are actually beside each other and do not mesh. From this point on the "trees" move further apart and we steadily lose strength. Scientists know that his process happens but they don't know much else.


     So that is why scientists are interested in the ninety two year old who competes in track. They want to know if there is a certain type of gene she has that the rest of us don't have that allows her this extraordinary strength. 


     If they find something, it's already too late for me. Getting up from the floor now takes me great  effort!

How Time Flies

        Yesterday morning I noticed that my friend, Bob,  had wished his daughter a happy 45th birthday. He mumbled a couple of things about entering into the world of parenthood 45 years ago and that parenthood was still great to this day.

       A week ago a blogging friend did a piece where part of it included a picture of her with her infant son, a son who left her and this world all too soon at the age of 40.

       I was fortunate enough to be 68 years old when my Dad died. I had told Dad that I wanted a Dad until I was 70.

       All of these examples are about the passage of time. With the passage of time there are losses. We lose our youth. We lose our children. We lose our parents. In some ways we lose the past as it dims and disappears.

       With my friend with the 45 year old daughter I couldn't help but comment that back when his daughter was born he was Mr. tall dark and handsome. His daughter got a big chuckle over my comment. I started to think of why she would think the comment humorous. When I first met her Dad he was in his late 20's with some gray hair on the temples. He was a lanky dude who was very active. His daughter obviously does not remember him in that way. By the time she would make memories of her Dad he would have changed physically.

       DJan, the blogger, often writes about her lost son. DJan looked at the picture and could vividly remember her lost son  and it brought back good memories of him. What she felt most about the picture was to look at herself and feel that she could hardly recognize herself. The photo was one that she had not seen before so to see it was a shock.

     As I was reaching rather ancient milestones and visiting my Dad I could see that the wheels were turning in his head. On one of his birthday cards I told him that on my next birthday I would be sixty-five. My step mother told me that he sort of shook his head and thought about it and then said, "You know Red's and old man!" My stepmother thought the comment hilarious and so did I. It must be hard for a man to watch his son grow to be old.

      All of these situations occur as time passes.  Our memory of the past dims and the situations we pass through modify our perception of our past. It's interesting to visit with my brother and compare the memories we have of the same things. We are less than a year apart so we were there for the same things. Sometimes we refresh each others memory of incidents we experienced.

       Alvin Toffler in Future Shock has an excellent section on time and how humans think about time. Toffler goes back and shows how we began measuring time which then posts landmarks in our lives. Toffler also dealt with our perception of time  and how it alters as we age.

      So these three situations just happened to come together and get me thinking about time. This coming from a guy who never wears a watch.

      How do you feel about the passage of time? Does it intrigue you? Does the passage of time make you feel happy or sad? I hope that everybody fully enjoys the passage of their life and the experiences they have.