To the editor:

Sunday morning, we changed all our clocks again. The ritual is twice a year. In the spring, move the clocks ahead, and in the fall, set them back again.

Each season, we hear the same remarks from those around us whose lives are more closely related to the time of day. Every person you talk to has an opinion on the change. Polls seem to indicate that a majority of people would prefer to leave the clocks alone.

Most everything in life consists of a routine of cycles of one type or another. The earliest humans soon noticed the cycles of the seasons. They noticed the day started to get longer or shorter regularly and that the sun would rise and set at certain points on the horizon at the beginning or end of the cycles, and man began to measure time.

As time evolved, humankind started to watch and record the cycles of time that affected life as they knew it. The moon cycles each month, tides rise and fall twice a day and shadows get longer or shorter as the sun passes overhead. The shadow soon evolved to the hours of the day when it was light and you could work. Time was now a part of our lives.

In an effort to aid mariners, the standard of Greenwich Mean Time set a standard to enable navigation east and west and determine locations. GMT gives us several time zones across the country. These standard time zones regulate all we do. It sets when we go to work and return home when business and services are available and of course the schedule of TV programs or the schedule of any form of mass transit, from planes to trains and buses.

If we truly wish for an absolute standard year around time, then maybe we should consider ignoring the local time zone and go for one time for the entire country. Accuracy and consistency are the issues involved. It makes little difference what hour the clock says so long as the individual knows when to go to their place of employment or the farmer goes out to feed the livestock. If all activities within a community are conducted on a regular basis, then does it matter if the clock says 9 or 2? You will still live and conduct business as now only the clock will change.

William Gerhard, Scipio