The Right Side Of The Road

Having just returned from South Bend, Indiana – one of those darling communities that refuses to wind its clocks back and forth like the rest of us do – I have found myself particularly frustrated with the outlay of American time zones. The good folks of northwestern Indiana refuse to join the world of Central Time and seem ill content jumping into that wild sphere known as Eastern Time. The result is weary travelers like myself who can’t figure out why the hotel alarm clock seems to be off by 60 ticks.

Consider this: The town of Whiting, Maine, which sits on the Atlantic Ocean, checks in at roughly -87 degrees longitude. Gary, Indiana, which is the last major stop before one has to wind the long arm backwards, is located at roughly -67 degrees longitude. So the Eastern Time Zone – when Indiana is of that state of mind – covers roughly 20 degrees longitude.

By comparison, Chicago, Illinois – the boarder of Central Time – is found at Gary’s -87 degrees longitude. The town of Lamar, Colorado, which is one of the first stops in the Mountain Time Zone, is found at -102 degrees longitude.

Translation: the Eastern Time Zone is a full 33% larger than the Central Time Zone at the moment. If the Hoosier state would make the move into Central Time Zone, the good folks of Woodburn, Indiana would welcome themselves into one of the new time boarder cities, checking in at roughly -84 degrees longitude. The Eastern Time Zone would now encompass roughly 17 degrees longitude while the Central Time Zone would include roughly 18 degrees longitude, and, hey, what’s a degree of longitude between friends, right?

I realize this is a particularly mundane rant for a political blog, but frankly this whole issue is completely absurd. Either the good folks of Maine need to launch themselves into Atlantic Time (something that is fairly sensible based on the state’s relation to various Canadian points in that sphere) or the people of Indiana need to join their Illinois neighbors in being an hour behind New York City.

There are classic arguments against this notion, mostly based on farming. But after a weekend spent checking clocks based on what county I happened to wander through, it would seem to me that Indiana might just make up its darn mind, join the rest of the United States in the bi-annual ritual of clock winding and inform farmers that the sun’s duration in the sky is not directly correlated to what the good folks at Timex have to say.

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