Can't save any more daylight

Whenever the time comes to reset the clocks, it's not unusual to hear someone say that we should just go ahead and go to daylightsaving time all year.

After all, we only have "standard time" for 19 of the 52 weeks of the year. Maybe, the comments go, we should give up the pretense that that's the standard and keep the clocks the same all year.

No more springing forward or falling back. Don't worry about having to remember to adjust every timepiece in the house and car or finding the instruction sheets to figure out how to reset the timers.

Anyone awake around dawn last week should have the answer to that. Dawn should not arrive after 7 a.m. in October, as it did last week.

You wake up in the dark and, for a moment, might have the peaceful feeling that you can roll over and go back to sleep for a while. After all, it's not even daybreak yet.

Then the alarm goes off in the dark room and you realize that, no matter what the world outside seems to indicate, the clock has ruled that it's morning.

Daylight saving time was instituted to provide more time for outside activities in the summer. That is a good idea.

It might just be possible, however, to have too much of a good thing.

Over the years, daylight saving time has been expanded into the spring and fall. At some point, the time change stretched past what some might consider a reasonable limit.

Like a 40-year-old who won't admit that he's too old for teenage fashions, sometimes you have to admit that the time for something is past.

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