Our clocks moved forward last week. It is a rite of Spring and is always a mini trauma in our households. If your place is like ours the formality of moving the hands of the clocks forward, or backward, actually comes in dribs and drabs. It takes a day or two to complete it. The computers in the house are first because they do it all automatically. What a world. The old living room clock, which was grandmother’s, is next and the rest of the time pieces follow along. The last are the clocks in my wife’s car and in mine. It takes a few days to adjust. In my car the only thing that really works properly is the clock.

Last week my mind harkened back to the heady days of Double Daylight Savings Time. We all remember that. The year was 1988 when clocks advanced by two hours in the Spring instead of one. The plan was one of lofty ideals. It was to maximize evening sunlight for us. It did result in late sunrises and sunsets. It was very controversial. Most people didn’t like Double Daylight, but I did.

There were elements of it that were quite disruptive. The business community had to deal with being even more out of step with mainland Canada. Toronto time was two and half hours off our own – difficult for business in its many forms. The thing is that I didn’t miss baseball games or the major network newscasts. Often, I have talked about the power of television. In 1988, I didn’t miss baseball games or newscasts because I just adjusted my sleep pattern. I stayed up later and went to work a bit sleepy.

My world didn’t actually end except I couldn’t stay up for some things. I did do a lot outdoor stuff well into the night. That includes gardening and having a late beer out on the back deck. It does take an adjustment.

I should tell you about my other experience with altered states of daylight and evening hours. Many years ago, I was in Iceland’s capital Reykjavik. My working day in news was over, and I was walking down a road towards my hotel at about 10 in evening. It was still daylight when I heard cheering up a hill off the edge of the road. I walked towards the noise and found there was a soccer pitch and a game in progress. It turns out if was Iceland first division soccer. The home team was Valur FC. I bought my ticket and sat in the stands to watch the game. I had a coffee and a bag of pork rinds. It was great. The game didn’t end until after midnight, but it was still BROAD DAYLIGHT. I had a good time. Valur FC had an American goalkeeper.

So when late night day light came to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1988, I was ready for it. I couldn’t stay up for Johnny Carson anymore and it took me a little longer to get going in the morning, but I survived. I still watched baseball and the network news. The cats were a problem. They don’t have clocks to move forward or set back. They got left out overnight a few times because they wouldn’t come in on time. The birds did fine. They came out at dawn or just before it and started their evening song by the sun and not by any little bird watches.

Somewhere in all is a lesson for 2026. That lesson is related to Stonehenge near Salisbury, England and Machu Picchu in Peru in South America and it has something to so with the spring solstice and the concept of time. As often happens, the lesson escapes me.

You can contact Jim Furlong at jfurlong@ntv.ca