It’s time to spring forward — again

It is time to reset the clocks, again. According to Time.com, tomorrow at 2 a.m. the clocks are to be set an hour ahead to 3 o’clock.

“The U.S. implemented Daylight Saving Time on March 19, 1918, with the official reason that setting clocks an hour ahead would save fuel and money. Researchers have found, however, that the practice may actually increase the use of energy. According to a 2011 study, electricity consumption grew as much as 4 percent after some Indiana counties began observing Daylight Saving Time,” according to Time.com.

Who but the government would think if you take a pile of blankets and move one from the bottom of the mound and move it to the top that the stack becomes taller.

I dislike DST but my husband, Fred, really hates it.

“Why can’t they just leave it alone,” said he.

He is quite fond of this saying. He uses it for everything from computer updates to when a store moves its merchandise.

When my mother cleaned house, she would rearrange the furniture. She would have my brothers move the couch so she could vacuum under it and then put it back in a different position. We had a large living room and with the exception of Daddy’s piano, she moved all the furniture, as there were several groupings that would work with what we had.

The first time I vacuumed our house I put the furniture back in a different place. Fred came in the door without turning on the light and went sprawling over the chair I moved. That was literally the last time I rearranged the furniture.

He grew up in an era where men gathered in the garages and worked on their cars and trucks. He had a Dodge Dart he used to drag race. I’m not sure how car guys develop an affinity for a particular model. There are Chevy fellows and Ford chaps; my husband is a Chrysler man. Personally I don’t care who makes the car as long as it is small, red and reliable.

The nicest car we ever drove was a previously owned 1987 Mercedes Benz. That car had all the bells and whistles, including a telephone jack. Its previous owner was attorney John Barker. The rumor was he got the car in lieu of legal fees. Chrysler man or not, Fred loved driving that car. It was the big, heavy S-Class Mercedes in a deep forest green.

When my late friend and former Tribune graphic artist Mark Zewe saw it, he said it was like the one Jackie Gleason drove in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie.

We drove that car to Denver in the summer of 2003. We had adopted an 11-year-old rescue dog named “Whiskers” the previous fall. His prior master had gone into a long-term care facility and the family couldn’t keep him. Since the last time his master put him in a kennel the master never came back for him, rather than traumatize him we took the dog with us.

We found he was a vintage traveler. As we never had taken any of our previous dogs on vacation, he taught us a lot about travelling with a pet. When we stopped, he would jump out of the car, do his business and be ready to go, even if it was raining. We gave that little dog another seven years and I really miss him.

My vet, Dr. Frank Ambrose, said Whiskers had gone from Alcatraz to Disneyland we he came to live with us. Consider adopting an adult dog. They need you more than the cute puppies at the shelter and you can avoid the puppy chewing up slippers and the furniture period.

On the way to Colorado, we stopped for the night at the pet-friendly Virgin River hotel casino in Mesquite, Nevada. I won enough money on the “Elvira Mistress of the Dark” slot-machine to pay for the trip. Never won on slots like that before or since.

As much as Fred loved driving that Mercedes when things started going wrong with it, even used replacement parts were off the charts expensive. We sold the Benz to a couple that had several Mercedeses of the same vintage. I think they painted it purple, or at least I have seen them driving a purple one just like it.

Remember to spring forward and have a good weekend.