Tricky Dick's time trick didn't stick

I see they're once again talking about getting rid of Standard Time. The change is halfway through Congress. Fine with us night owls, but hardly anybody's talking about the fact that this was tried once before in the United States, and it failed.

(Here goes Grandpa again. "Some of us are old enough to remember...")

It was during Nixon, and his energy crisis. Permanent Daylight Savings Time. It was supposed to save fuel somehow. I don't know if it ever did that, but it led to little kids walking to school in the dark, which was dangerous. Everybody was fine with it until the dead of winter. Then its popularity plummeted. Once Nixon was gone, Standard Time came back for roughly half of every year.

Of course, it's more than 50 years later, and kids don't walk to school any more, or not many do. But I'm sure there will be similar concerns. You might be better off getting rid of Daylight Savings Time and keeping Standard Time. Instaed of 9:00 sunsets in early summer, it would be 8:00.

If Daylight Time does become permanent, I suspect many human activities will eventually start an hour later, by the clock, than they do now. Instead of 9 to 5, in the dark months it will be 10 to 6. Or maybe they'll switch to 10 to 6 permanently. Exactly what will be accomplished, other than to silence a lot of annoying complaints about the semiannual time change, escapes me.