Photo Shoot: Catching up with time
“Lost time is never found again,” said Benjamin Franklin. Last week saw a lot of lost time. Sure the sun is now setting shy of 6:30 p.m. and not showing up until 6:40 in the morning. But at my house I have literally lost time.
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Wander from room to room and every clock tells a different story. The clock on the mantel over the fireplace is about 7 minutes slow, the bedroom clock is almost 30 minutes off and the spare bedroom clock is permanently stopped at 8:10. This multi-time zone phenomenon across one street address is largely the fault of draining batteries.
Soon it will be time to turn back the clocks
A simple AA power source switch-out in the bedroom has us back on schedule there. The fireplace time keeper is a bit more finicky even with a new battery. It takes some fine-tuning to stay accurate. As for the big brass wall clock only correct twice a day, several attempts at repairs have been for naught, and being correct at least twice in one 24-hour time period is a better average than some politicians or weather forecasters can claim.
The Sunshine Protection Act, championed by our own United States Sen. Ed Markey last spring which swept through the Senate unanimously is still on hold for deployment in 2023, so Sunday Nov. 6, 2022 will be the delicate choreography of turning back all the time keepers in the house one hour.
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Now that most of our clocks auto correct themselves, car, cell phones and computer displays, hands-free operation, no need to do anything. A saving grace from the days of page-long instructions on “push button A in conjunction with button C to advance one hour” along with a different programming requirement for “falling back,” technology to the rescue.
Consider the earliest time keepers
The first time keepers were sun dials going back to 3500 BC in Egypt, when the sun went down, no need to know what time it was until morning. Early clock designs date to the mid 1600s based on springs and gears to tick away the day. Now with a cell phone in your pocket the exact time moves with the owner no matter what time zone you find yourself.
So watching a slow retreat of a big sunset recently I think perhaps the sundial might just be the way to keep up with time for me. The user gets a fairly accurate hourly readout. When the sun sinks below the horizon, the day is done. No batteries required, accuracy not guaranteed.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Photo Shoot: Catching up with time
