By Doris Schroeder
According to the calendar, on March 12, the bi-yearly time change will again make its debut when we turn our clocks ahead one hour so we can get more work done (?). I suppose it is a good thing but then again, I wonder. Now that our “times” have changed, I wonder “is it really necessary?”
For some reason I have always enjoyed the early hours of the day. When we lived in town, both in Hutch and California, I loved to hear the day come alive…the birds beginning their morning twitter, the milk man on his early route, or the ice man with his tongs. On the farm, it was the shrill crowing of the rooster , the squeaking of the windmill as well as the raucous cackling of the crows in the shelterbelt near my bedroom window that awakened me to a new day.
As times began to change in town, we heard the high-pitched brakes of the school bus as it drove down the street. But now, we live in a new time and the brakes no longer squeal. We live in town with many new inventions and the sounds are more gentle…so gentle, they do not wake us older people up…except for me! My favorite time of day is in the early morning hours. I love to get up, put the coffee on, take a few minutes to greet God and then get in the paper from the front porch and explore the world. This is followed by a couple hours at my computer as I count my blessings…the fact that I belong to God, I’ve got a wonderful hubby and family, fairly good health and a comfortable home. These facts will never change even though the address will.
If I use one of our modern inventions, the TV, and turn on the news, one could easily conclude that our world is going crazy, especially the United States. There are actually people that don’t know how to do anything but complain and if they can’t find anything to grumble about, they make it up. Instead of looking for ways to help, they would rather agitate. God help them!
As I prepare my morning coffee and toast, I don’t have to get a bucket of water from the outside pump and lug it in. I just heat it up on our electric stove and pour it in my cup with a spoonful of instant coffee and creamer. I slip a piece of bread in my automatic toaster and butter it when it clicks up.
I notice I have a shortage of towels so I open the dirty wash and slip it in the automatic washer with a half cup of detergent and turn it on. Later I put it in the dryer and in thirty minutes have a clean, fresh load of towels to put away. We used to pump the water at the outside pump, heat it on the kerosene stove, pour it into our hand operated washer, put it in the rinse tub and wring it through our hand operated wringer, and hang it on the line. Once in awhile some birds would fly over…!
Things don’t even have to be ironed any more. There was a time many years ago when Monday was spent all day washing, starching and hanging clothes on the outside line, bringing them in, sprinkling the things that would need all day ironing on Tuesday, and catching our breath. Now we can do it all in a short time. And some of us still complain!
The important thing in the “old” days is that we tried not to waste anything. The thing about time is even more important. We know we have only a certain amount of time to live in this world, we can use it only for ourselves or we can use it to do what God planned for us. If we have accepted Him into our life, we can follow the perfect plan for us as He makes our lives count. Or we can go our own way and spend eternity wishing we had! We can go through the “time change” even as “times change” with much peace if we let God lead us!
Doris welcomes your comments and can be reached at [email protected]
