What Time Is It, Anyway?

Time stands still in Arizona.  Our clocks don’t fall back or spring forward. They just stay the same, which only makes sense to Arizonans and confuses the rest of the Country.  In the summer, when my telephone rings at 4 a.m., I know it’s a call from the East Coast. 

However the three-hour time difference is a bonus when flying to New York City. People marvel that I can party until 1 a.m., but only I know that it’s just 10 p.m. back home. Of course the trip in reverse exacts nature’s revenge when I wake up at 3 a.m. after going to bed at 7 p.m. 

Energy conservation is the rationale for daylight savings time, but when it’s 110 degrees in Arizona no one has any energy anyway, so we got an exemption. The desert does cool off at 9 p.m., and early morning is the time for hiking, biking and not complaining. Late sleepers just avoid getting out of bed until October, which gives new meaning to “killing time. 

It is true that the Navajo Nation does follow daylight savings, because it is easier to keep the whole reservation on one system, since their territory stretches across 4 States (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah) and 3 out of 4 are good odds for not going completely loco.

The Hopi Reservation is totally surrounded by the Navajos, but they have joined Arizona in not enacting daylight savings time. My rationale for this decision is that perhaps an enterprising Hopi brave got a gross of digital clocks at a good price. How DO you change the time on those things anyway? 

Sometimes religion makes people hesitate to fool around with time. “If God wanted us in an earlier time zone, God would have put us in an earlier time zone.” Surely, Moslems wouldn’t welcome having to fast later into the evening at Ramadan. The shopkeepers were already cranky in the late afternoon when I entered a marketplace in Israel. Their scowls weren’t very welcoming, which I thought wasn’t good for business, but I caught on when I heard in unison the sounds of stomach rumblings. No, another hour of fasting just wouldn’t do during Ramadan. 

My Latino friends have a totally different concept of time. I learned early on that manana does not mean tomorrow. It really means, “just not today.” 

Esther Blumenfeld (hasta luego)