
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994                   TAG: 9404090035
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DAYLIGHT SAVING IS A TIME WHOSE IDEA HASN'T COME

"Well," I said to the greatest station wagon driver of them all, "now do the gentler zephyrs of spring herald the new season, and birdsong has a renewed poignancy, and Pippa is passing and the dew is on the thorn."

"Right," the driver said, putting a wrestling grip on a piece of wild grapevine and bending it into a wreath.

"Fear not," I said, "for the ancient cycle of revival is upon the Earth, and the trees thereof - at least those trees that escaped the cruelty of winter - and all is well upon the face of the greening, renewing land."

"Except that sooner or later you're going to start whining about daylight saving time, right?" the driver said. "How it takes too long to get dark, and how Old Bennie here can't go to bed as early as he likes to."

"Actually," I said, "I thought I was composing an ode to spring, but you are right. On April 2 we saw the last morning, as God intended us to see mornings, until October, when mornings are not a whole lot of fun.

"It is no secret that I have long regarded daylight saving time as a tyranny thrust upon us by a bunch of elitists who run around doing things after supper when every natural instinct tells them to take a nap in front of the TV before going to bed."

"Why can't you be normal like everybody else?" the driver said. "That's what I'd like to know."

"And next," I said, "you are going to suggest that I take up golf in the afternoons when you very well know that I have been afraid of golf since that awful morning in 1950 when I teed off at the Salem municipal course and the ball hit a tree and bounced back to where I was standing.

"After almost half a century, I still hear that cruel laughter."

"Normal people like daylight saving time," the driver said. "You're like Dracula. You like the dark."

"I'll tell you one thing, baby," I said. "If I were Dracula, I'd bite every person who likes daylight saving time on the neck. That would make them appreciate the dark, boy."

"I'm not your baby or your boy," the driver said. "Why don't you stop embarrassing your family and try to be like everybody else for a change?"

I didn't feel like going ahead with my ode to spring after that.

I went to the basement to work on these posters for this protect rally I'm planning.

All of them strongly suggest that people who like daylight saving time ought to be tortured periodically.

by CNB