sommerzeit

          During my first tooth-brushing decades I heard so many different theories about the origins of Daylight Savings Time... I stopped asking.  But I never stopped wondering.  A favorite was my mother's mother's ...so farmers would have more daylight hours.  My still-believe-in-the-tooth-fairy-self pointed out her absence of logic—farmers would rise and shine when the sun rose and shone and not care about clock-time—she smiled and nodded and shrugged and said:  it is what it is.  The ubiquitous yet nonsensical reply given when one's sword of curiosity meets a shield of ignorance being wielded by the good-intentioned.

          My family (the poster family for that phrase), most of my blood relatives, and many hectares-o-tonnes of other humans I've met, valiantly shoulder that shield; ignorant of their own ignorance.  Most have done this so often they think that saying "oh, well, it is what it is" is just being polite.

          During my long-in-the-tooth decades, I recall replying - dunno - and - there are many guesstimates (remember using that word?) - as well as - I've heard of several reasons, but none that make any sense.  But now, behold!  Another opinion has been proffered.  And since this one is on Squire's favorite chalkboard it... jus haz 2 B tru.  Well, it sounds truer.  In 1916, the Germans—to conserve coal during the last years of a war they were going to lose—bumped their clocks forward in the summer.  And.  The warring world followed suit.  No logic sounds better.  "Deeter did it.  So, we're gonna do it too."