Changing times

All my life, time and timepieces have fascinated me. I can still remember how proud I was when, in kindergarten; I learned to tell time using a paper clock made from colored construction paper, a pushpin, and a red crayon. In junior high, I got an A in shop for building an early version of a digital clock from a kit I bought with money I’d saved from delivering the Sheboygan Press.

Any list of my favorite books, movies, or television shows would include some whose plots involve time or time travel. The various incarnations of the Star Trek franchise were, and still are, particular favorites of mine because they often involved Kirk, Picard, or one of the other “space jocks” messing with what was solemnly referred to in the dialog as “the fabric of time.”

Although I don’t wear any jewelry other than a wedding ring, I once spent most of a performance bonus on an engraved heirloom-quality wristwatch instead of using the money for a down payment on a car that I desperately needed. A few years ago, I was politely asked to leave the famous Tourneau watch store in New York City after spending hours browsing without actually buying anything.

Given my fascination with time, it should come as no surprise that we would have a large number of clocks around our house. Not including the green and red digital clocks that come as standard equipment on our microwave ovens, DVD players, TV cable boxes, or the clocks in the dashboards of our cars, there were, at last count, just under one hundred clocks adorning various walls, shelves and tables.

In the last 30 years, I have purchased clocks of various sizes, designs, and levels of understandability ranging in price from a $10 K-Mart kitchen clock to one handmade number worth over a thousand dollars that is constructed (gears and all) from exotic woods the maker found while living on the beach in Hawaii.

There is at least one clock in every room in our house, including the storage area in the basement, the garage, the deck (not technically a room but what the heck), and each of our three bathrooms. Just like TVs in a sports bar, there is at least one clock within sight from anywhere you sit.

Three walls of our finished basement hold clocks made from, among other things, old computer parts, a 1987 New York City taxicab medallion, a blue fly swatter, aluminum kitchen utensils, old CDs, pieces of copper pipe, and colored fused glass. Then there are the clocks fashioned to look like cats, dogs, fish, frogs, birds, and — this being Wisconsin — a cow. One clock tells time in binary (zeros and ones) by means of flashing red LEDs while another is made from the blade of a Sears Craftsman circular saw.

Last summer, a housesitting friend of ours nearly called the cops after he heard a man’s voice coming from the basement. Upon investigation, he discovered that it was the Homer Simpson clock announcing that it was 6 p.m. by intoning “Ohhhhhhh donuts!”

A couple of weekends ago we Americans engaged in the annual ritual of “springing ahead,” officially known as the start of Daylight Savings Time.

It never ceases to amaze me that around this time every year over 300 million Americans from diverse backgrounds, religions, races, and political points of view, with little complaint and no fanfare, agree to all simultaneously change the time on their clocks and watches. Although the date for the start of Daylight Savings Time is mandated by an act of Congress, we the people voluntarily move the clocks forward and make the time change happen without threats, fines, or arm-twisting by the government.

Unless, like me, you have a geek’s love of time and/or an unusually large number of clocks, it is easy to forget how important it is that we all follow the same rules when it comes to our understanding of time.

If each of us individually decided when say, Monday, March 16, 2009 at 8:32 pm is, our highly technical interconnected civilization would quickly grid to a halt. Our modern lives are only possible because all of us have agreed (without much thought) to be governed by certain rules such as how we measure and record time.

For a people who have been so divided over the last few years, by politics, religion, what marriage means, whether to go to war, and how best to deal with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, it is really something that we are able to agree to add an extra hour of daylight to the end of each summer day. Even when some of us wonder if the benefits of doing so are worth the hassle of trying to remember which combination of buttons to press to change the clock on the dashboard of the Honda.

Agreeing to a standard time reference is one of those under-appreciated but very significant things we do as a civilized society. Having a common definition of time binds us together, unifies us as a people, and allows us to function in our business and personal lives.

The next time someone tells you that Americans can’t agree on anything anymore, ask him what time it is.