Here in the first full week of March, we find ourselves at that strangest of times, the intersection of what the calendar tells us is the end of winter, but when the thermometer shows us is clearly at least a hint of the start of spring. And if occasional 60-degree temperatures aren’t enough to make you think that winter’s worst is (hopefully) behind us, those plants and flowers already sprouting in your gardens and flower beds surely do.
If you need further evidence, there’s this: Daylight Saving Time is already upon us, Sunday being that day that at 2 a.m. the clocks are to be changed to instead say 3 a.m. Which raises a very interesting question – who among us either wakes or is still awake at 2 a.m. to physically do this?
Whenever it is that you actually change your clocks, if you need a reminder – it’s spring forward and fall back, meaning that this weekend you “lose” an hour.
I don’t know about you, but this is about the last time of year when we can stand to lose any time at all, let alone an entire hour.
That’s because as parents know, early March also marks the overlap of winter and spring sports, and other seasonal activities. On the one hand, you have winter sports like basketball coming to an end while spring sports like baseball and softball are just ramping of – assuming they haven’t been practicing all winter already, as some teams do. And, truth be told, at our house, they do.
If your family calendar is anything like ours, rare is the night that you don’t have one child going here for a practice or another there for a game of some sort, or both. And more.
Somewhere around all of that, we will begin to slowly venture back outdoors, breaking out the patio furniture, raking out those flower beds and gathering around the fire pits, assuming we’ve not already been tempted to do so in the recent spate of unseasonably warm weather. Whatever the activity, Daylight Saving Time will almost assuredly soon have us all doing more outside, and doing it deeper in to the evenings.
Like a welcome boost from a late-afternoon coffee, our days will welcome just that little kick we may need to shake off what remains of the winter doldrums, imploring us to return to our yards and porches, parks and ball fields. It won’t feel like we’ve been gone long, but how nice it will be to be back.
And though it remains a controversial measure, always seemingly under assault from one detractor or another, Daylight Savings Time brings that “extra” daylight most of us will greet with open arms.
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Already itching for the start of baseball and softball season, youth coaches are studying the calendar, wondering when they’ll be able to get their teams out to the Beach, Nike, Knoch, DuPage or elsewhere. Watching the long-range forecasts, we wonder when those days will come when we know we will be outside for good, no longer confined to indoor practice facilities to simulate the training for our outdoor sports. Of course, weeknight practices don’t just require decent weather and dry ground, but also sufficient daylight.
So that outdoor practice one might struggle to get started after school and after work on a weeknight this week would have to be wrapped up by sunset around 6, assuming one could even find a cooperative venue to hold it on anyway. But next week, we’ll bask in the windfall of that extra hour of daylight that will have us out there until something pushing more like 7 p.m.
With our youth-league games scheduled to start April 8, players and coaches alike are looking ahead to that day. That rare 60-degree Sunday afternoon when we were able to practice outside last month gave a taste of what was to come. And though the current 15-day forecast does call for a few possibilities of snow, we know we’ll be back out there soon enough.
Just this week, another coach and I scheduled an outdoor scrimmage for the night of April 6, banking not just on the fact that the weather will be cooperative by then, but also on the extra hour of light that will have sunset pushing nearly 7:30 on that date.
Just one example of the ways Daylight Saving Time does indeed lengthen our days and benefit our lives with increased outdoor activities, almost immediately.
But first, don’t forget to turn those clocks ahead.
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives and parents in Naperville.
Twitter: @RobManker