This morning I popped out of bed as I do every Sunday morning and stuck a cake in the oven. If I were to forget to do this I would be in deep trouble with my thirteen (13) Idaho grandchildren. While the cake was baking I got into my Sunday clothes for church. My wife and I piled into the pickup (Its a small Nissan so the locals here call it a toy.), scrapped the first ice of the year off the windshield, and drove the 300 yards (276.923 meters) to the church. The parking lot was empty on the north side of the church but I could see that the cars of church leaders were on the south side parking lot. There could be only one explanation. We were on Daylight Saving Time! You must remember that we are of the civilized fraction of this country. There is no such thing as Daylight Savings Time in Arizona. The Apaches just wont allow it. But during the night at exactly 2:00 a.m. it poked its ugly head into Idaho and we were had. You would think there would be some consideration for senior citizens, wouldnt you? Well, its Frederick Wilhelm Viktor Albert of Hohenzollern: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germanys fault. I read about the Kaiser at: http://www.worldwar1.com/biokais.htm. The first thing I learned was that he was not of good stock. Czar Nicholas II was his cousin. Hmmnnn! Queen Victoria was his grandmother and he had plenty of English kings and queens as uncles, aunts, and cousins too. So he could not be trusted. Clowning around got Wilhelm into World War II. He was playing soldier all the time. I quote the website: He loved his numerous uniforms and surrounding himself with the elite of German military society. He built up a fine army and navy, but he never planned to use this military might. It was the irrational exuberance of Austria-Hungary that he failed to control. He got about a zillion people killed or maimed in World War I. But his main crime of course was enforcing the idea of Daylight Saving Time. It was a contagious disease too. President Roosevelt called it War Time and never turned it off. But it had already spread across the uncivilized world before that. May I again quote our reference: Other countries immediately adopted this 1916 action: Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, and Tasmania. Nova Scotia and Manitoba adopted it as well, with Britain following suit three weeks later, on May 21, 1916. In 1917, Australia and Newfoundland began saving daylight. Who would have thought that of Luxembourg? I stayed there one night and they put me up in the Royal Suite. Such nice folks! At the time the city-state of Luxembourg was being bombed by a fanatic who may have had royal credentials. I saw the Olympic pool he had bombed. What a mess! Im sure it was a great-grandson or great-grandnephew of Wilhelm Viktor Albert of Hohenzollern: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Anyway the bombing stopped and I heard that maybe someone in officialdom said, Youve got to stop that! Actually, I think that the bomber went to Afghanistan to join Osama Bin Laden. Oh, look at that clock! Weve got to be off to churchagain! copyrightJohn T. Jones, Ph.D. 2005 |
