It's time to make a sensible decision about time

Good morning, and happy 2016. Yes, it's a brand-new year (minus one week), and this seems like a most appropriate time (emphasis on "time") to discuss one of my favorite topics: Daylight saving time.

Currently, we are not observing DST. We call this winter. This is when we throw good sense and logic to the wind and abide by ordinary time. In just a few weeks, we will endure half of the twice-a-year ritual of switching our clocks. We will, again, abandon ordinary time and live with DST. Then, in a few months, we will do it all over again, in reverse.

Something needs to be done about all this switching back and forth. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: Let's pick one time -- DST or ordinary time -- and stick with it all year long. Forever. And ever. Amen.

Once upon a time, we didn't have universal DST across the nation. Some cities tried it, and some states toyed with it. And then it became federally mandated, unless your state had the guts to say no. Nearly every state said yes, which means we have this back-and-forth business every year.

What Missouri needs is a champion for what I call CST.

No, that's not Central Standard Time. It's Common Sense Time.

In all the years since DST became the national standard for part of the year, I have never once -- never! -- heard anyone say, "I love changing my clocks twice a year. It's so much fun."

I have, on the other hand, heard many, many individuals say, "I prefer daylight saving time, because I enjoy that extra hour of sunlight."

What extra hour of sunlight? We have the same number of hours of sunlight regardless of which time protocol we use. Believe it or not, switching our clocks does not affect our planet's daily rotations, nor does switching move the sun one way or the other. This "extra hour" business is merely an illusion, one that could be easily fostered if we had just one time all year long.

I said the Show Me State needs a champion. Well, let me introduce you to my new best friend, state Rep. Mike Kelley from Springfield. I have never met Rep. Kelley face to face, but I feel like I know him because of the many news reports about his efforts to do something about time changing instead of just talking about it.

Rep. Kelley has proposed an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would make daylight saving time the year-around time for all of us. All of the time. Come winter, spring, summer or fall, we would never have to change our clocks again.

This would be, I'm sure, a taste of heaven. Do you think (a) God cares which time we use, since in God's scope of eternity we humans are here for such a short time, or (b) that anyone ever worries about switching any clocks in Heaven, where time barely exists, if at all, and where a day would be like 10,000 years on Earth? Or something like that.

What Mr. Kelley needs now is support. That's where you come in. If you think it makes sense to have just one time all the time, let your state representative or senator know about it. Let them know that switching time twice a year only makes us look wishy-washy, and Missourians, by golly, are not spineless, gutless namby-pambies. Are we?

Please say "No!"

Kelley's proposed constitutional amendment is not perfect. It would require that at least two neighboring states adopt year-around DST before Missouri made such a move. He is probably thinking of Illinois and Kansas in particular, since the metropolitan areas of Kansas City and St. Louis straddle state borders. It would be, he probably thinks, too confusing to have DST on one side of the line and ordinary time on the other during the darkest months of the year.

Hog rot.

Folks in Illinois and Kansas aren't stupid. They are hard-working, honest folks just like Missourians. Some of my best friends live in Illinois and Kansas. If they want year-around DST, that's great. If they don't, it's their choice to be yoked with needless time changes twice a year. But I wouldn't call them stupid. Exactly.

It's time to step up, Missourians. With Rep. Kelley's proposed constitutional amendment we have an opportunity to be national leaders. We have an opportunity to show the world that Missouri is first-class. We have an opportunity to make history and lead the way for at least 48 other states.

We can do it. If we can build billion-dollar outdoor football stadiums for third-rate professional football teams, we can do anything.

And I mean anything.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.