The Minnesota Farm Woman

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  Benjamin Franklin

It has been said that Benjamin Franklin is the first one to have suggested the idea of Daylight Savings Time. It wasn’t actually started until years later, but the original idea was his.  I’ve got a bone to pick with old Ben. It has been two weeks since we turned our clocks back and my body still hasn’t adjusted. Neither has Barney the Chihuahua’s. The bladders of a middle-aged Farm Woman and a small Chihuahua are both the size of a  thimble and neither  understands that while it was bad enough getting up at 5:00 a.m. it is even worse when 5:00 a.m. suddenly becomes 4:00 a.m.  Please Government Officials, pick a time. Any time. Pick a time then leave it alone so we don’t have to keep changing our clocks and our bladders back and forth.  Every appliance in our house has a clock that needs to be changed.  We have two alarm clocks, two coffee pot clocks, the stove clock,  and the microwave clock, to name a few.  HE usually changes about four of them.  The rest of them are either forgotten or are left alone in a deliberate attempt to make me think I am losing my mind.   The clock in my car is still wrong, too.  That one isn’t hard to change, but involves getting out the manual, turning to the English language section,  pushing some up arrows down and some down arrows up,  and pressing and holding another button for three seconds while facing southwest and standing on one leg, or something like that.  With all those buttons and arrows to push on car radios/CD players/docking stations, am I the only one who ever wonders why there can’t just be a “clock” button?  All of this takes time, and

Lost time is never found again.  Benjamin Franklin

Ben was a very smart man, but the only clocks he probably checked were his trusty pocket watch and the clock in the town square.  The difficulty of getting all of his digital clocks to read exactly the same time would have possibly put him over the edge just enough to make him go fly a kite in a lightning storm or something.

 Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.  Benjamin Franklin

I would like to perhaps make this column a little longer, but it is nearly 8:00 p.m., and since I keep waking up at 4:00 a.m., I can’t seem to keep my eyes open  much later than this.  It’s a vicious cycle. Not to worry, though.  Give me four or five months and I’ll get used to it.  Here’s one more quote from our friend Ben:

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Benjamin Franklin.

Maybe I shouldn’t use that one.  In my research, I discovered that this often-used quote is actually a kind of urban legend, and that Benjamin Franklin probably never said it. I’ll let you be the judge.

 Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Benjamin Franklin