Time is out of joint

Rob Price

Daylight Saving Time was an idea hatched in the early 20th century as a way of conserving energy. Moving the clock ahead one hour created the effect of adding an hour of daylight to the early evening, a period when most people were still working. And as I understand it, studies indicate Daylight Saving Time continues to reduce energy consumption by small amount.

We return from Daylight Saving time to Standard Time this weekend, turning the clocks back one hour. The significant point about this time shift is the fact it occurs one week late. The US Congress in 2005 decided to postpone the return to Standard Time by one week in an effort to further reduce the country's energy consumption. President Bush made the idea official by signing The Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law, apparently in ignorance of the traditional Republican injunction against monkeying around with things that already work.

Why is this warning wise? Because whenever government tinkers around with the basic machinery of our everyday lives, it creates an incalculable number of unintended consequences.

It's too early to know how many unintended consequences the later return to Standard Time will have, but at least one consequence became clear on Halloween. Traditional trick-or-reating hours are between p.m and 8 p.m., and in the past the beginning of trick-or-treating coincided with the onset of darkness. This was convenient, because it also was traditional to light our pumpkins a few minutes before the start of the trick-or-treat period.

That didn't work this year. At 5:55 p.m. I was standing on my front porch, admiring my own ornately carved pumpkin and looking forward to lighting it for trick-or-treaters. The problem was, there was too much sunlight to enjoy the full effect. Initially, I was confused: Since when had Halloween gotten so sunny? Then I realized trick-ortreating was starting, in effect, one hour earlier. This gave me one more reason to deplore our country's hapless approach to energy consumption.

The excess sunlight was particularly galling, because my wife and had acquired a truly noble pumpkin. It weighed 35 pounds and was shaped like a giant pear. I carved a nasty-looking monster with a giant mouth, and sharp teeth, and - this was the cool part - a small pumpkin sticking halfway out of the mouth.

For a moment I hoped the extra hour of sunlight would delay the start of trick-or-treating for sensible children, who know trick-or-treating is best done in the dark. At 6 p.m. sharp, however, I saw a small horde of kids approaching my house, so I lit the candles inside my pumpkin and stepped back to assess the effect: Not bad, but one hour short of brilliant.

"I can't believe Congress and President Bush have managed to screw up Halloween," I said to my wife. "On top of everything else."

"I think trick-or-treating in daylight is good," my wife said. "It's much safer, when you think about it."

Personally, I find my wife's ideas regarding safety totally wrongheaded. Safety has nothing to do with Halloween, a celebration that calls for children to dress up in dark costumes and run around city streets in search of candy. Whoever thought up Halloween was not thinking about children's safety.

Now, in the aftermath of Halloween, I hear other people talking about the excess sunlight. "It just felt funny," one neighbor told me, and I agreed. Halloween may be a silly celebration of ghosts and candy; on the other hand it ushers in the Fall and reminds us of the dark days of winter that are just around the corner. Children dressed up as ghouls are scary in a makebelieve way; adults know truly scary heating bills are on their way.

So this is what happens when the government starts tinkering: They've gone and ruined Halloween.

Next year, I'm going to carve a congressman's face on my pumpkin. That will be truly scary.