Daylight Savings Time

It was a better day for traffic signals today.  I only had to come to a full stop twice - note the distinction:  I did barrel on through one that was way down the pink side of amber, and at another I had to coast down to "just barely" before it changed, but on my score card those count on the green side.

I am determined to enjoy the next few mornings.  We have just passed the calendar point at which the elevation of the sun at my preferred departure time allows me to turn out onto the highway (at an intersection without a signal) before the sun is high enough over the horizon to blind me to the approach of large vehicles towing silver tanks of milk or SUVs travelling 15 mph over the speed limit.  Getting out there can be an adventure.  Just now, though, I can look back to the east and see those shiny ribbons where the tar leached out of the asphalt during high summer and know that if I can see them unbroken all the way back to the bend, I can wrangle my elderly low-powered behemoth out there without fear of imminent destruction.  This will last for another week or so, until we go off daylight savings time - that kicks the sun an hour higher in the sky and it all happens again.

I haven't ever quite figured out daylight savings time.  I know how it works, of course:  spring ahead; fall back and all that - lose an hour of sleep at one end, gain it back at the other.  I just don't understand why - and what it is supposed to be saving.  I am pretty sure that the sun shines for the same number of hours on any given day regardless of what time we call it.  I suppose some of those long summer days could spare an hour of sunlight - if I could save it for one of the miserably cold and short days in the middle of winter, but they won't let me do that. 

Why can't we all just use Greenwich Mean Time or some other designated standard?  Who made the prime meridian run through Greenwich, anyway?  School could just start at some sun-appropriate hour.  And I would be far less likely to arrive at the airport an hour late because it is in central time, not "real" time (which is the designated time where I live), because 10 o'clock would be 10 o'clock, not 9 o'clock.  I suppose we would have to all go on a 24 hour clock, too.  It wouldn't make any significant difference when calling the cousins in Ireland, it would still be necessary to figure the "displacement" - 2200 hours would be late evening there and the middle of the afternoon here, but that wouldn't be more difficult than figuring out that we are seven hours earlier than GMT and if it is 7 pm here it is 2 am there - or is it six hours...