I hate the “fall back” and “spring ahead” of the changing between Daylight Savings Time. I’ve been advocating for us to pick one and just stick with it. There’s movement among the states to go to year-round daylight savings time, and I was all for it. That was until I heard the host talk about when the nation tried it back in 1974.

It was 1974, and the energy crisis was cutting into the American way of life, with odd-even gas rationing, a national speed limit and shortened Nascar races. The Emergency Daylight Saving Time Act signed by President Nixon dictated that clocks would spring forward one hour on Jan. 6  and stay that way for almost 16 months, until April 27, 1975.

By fall, the dark mornings were apparently wearing on the American people. Proclaiming “it’s for the children” those scholars standing at bus stops in the predawn lawmakers threw in the towel of gloom. Year-round DST was scrapped, and on Oct. 27, clocks fell back.

Empirical evidence of a failed national experiment is a pretty strong argument against year-round DST. Not sure if that would mean the same for year-round standard time. I know where my proclivities lie, which makes me skeptical of my position in the light of new evidence.