Forget about Daylight Savings Time. The Associated Press says it’s actually “daylight-saving time,” and the Associated Press means business. Hyphens and lowercased letters notwithstanding, this time of year is a special time of year. We seemingly lose an hour of sleep by seemingly gaining an hour of daylight. Eventually, it works itself out, but those first few days always feel somewhat different. Good different, though. Your Mountain Times staff likes good different, as well as daylight-saving time. Here’s why:

Frank Ruggiero: Eternal Sunshine of the Groggy Mind

Daylight-saving time, as perceived under the influence of LSD.

It’s a fun balancing act that daylight-saving time. Just like yielding for pedestrians, it takes some getting used to. That first Monday morning, my eyelids protest and do their darndest to rationalize hitting snooze yet again. This whole process manages to work its way into my subconscious, where in my dream, hitting snooze for the fifth time is the only logical thing to do, because the koala bear on a Segway says so.

The workday then follows, with the obligatory office chit-chat bemoaning the loss of an hour’s sleep weighed against the benefits of a longer day, provided it’s not a longer workday. Forced chuckling then ensues, as does the water cooler bubbling. But it’s that latter part of the so-called joke that rings the most true and pleasant, at least for me. Since the typical newspaper workweek runs about 192 hours, seldom during winter do we return home before dark, which makes it seem as if we lead our social lives in the perpetual darkness of some David Lynch movie, usually minus the costumed dwarf. So, this evening-time daylight comes as a welcome reprieve from retreating to my sitting parlor and reflecting solemnly on dark roads.

Days become days again, making nights feel like they’ve been earned. And to hell with the koala bear on a Segway for saying otherwise.

Melanie Davis: How Mel Got Her Evenings Back

Daylight-saving time? Blue the Dog could care less.

I have mixed feelings about daylight-saving time. It starts off rocky for me every year. I have trouble adjusting my sleep schedule. I like to wake up with the sun, and daylight-saving time leaves me sleeping in. Waking up at 6 a.m. to daylight better fits my schedule.

However, once settled in, I adore the extra hour of sunshine in the evenings. Leaving work doesn’t feel like the end of the day. There are still hours left that can be enjoyed outside. I go through a lot of charcoal in warmer, longer days. Nearly every meal is cooked on the grill.

Daylight-saving time greatly improves my mood because of the amount I am able to accomplish in one day. After work, I can take the dog for a hike, do laundry, sit on the deck and read — the possibilities are endless.

It is great to be more active in the evenings. I still go hiking and spend time outdoors in the winter, but not nearly enough. I am counting the days to spring. Blue and I both could use a little exercise and fresh air. My sofa also needs time to spring back into a shape that does not so closely resemble my form.

Caroline Monday: America the Great vs. Hair Product

It’s clear that Franklin earned his spot the $100 bill when he came up with daylight-saving time, plus all that other stuff he did.

I never knew the man, but if I had known him I would have given him a big high-five for coming up with daylight-saving time. I truly do love it and appreciate it.

I think it is since moving to the mountains that I truly began to appreciate daylight saving. Until moving to Boone about a year and a half ago, I lived in the flat lands, first in Greenville and then in Raleigh. Something I never realized about the mountains until I moved here was how the higher skyline affected the light. I am sure that it gets darker earlier here than it does in eastern part of the state.

The different light and the frigid weather, also a new experience for me, initially made adjusting to High Country winters a challenge for me. When daylight saving finally rolls around I know there is a light at the end of the wintery tunnel. It is like the weight of the early darkness finally lifts off of my shoulders.

In Europe, they do not switch to daylight-saving time and thus I must conclude that it is one of the things that make America a great nation. Other things that I have had a hard time finding overseas are ice cubes and guys without too much product in their hair.

Scott Nicholson: Single-hour Shenanigans

The only thing better than having an extra hour is having an extra hour that doesn’t exist and therefore leaves no memory, trace, or criminal record.

To that end, I can think of far more fantasized shenanigans than I could ever squeeze into an a single hour, even one that reliably rolls around once a year and therefore allows for much anticipation and planning. Since it’s a pretend hour, I’ll pretend that I am on a sailboat in the Caribbean getting blown off course toward the Bermuda Triangle, where I run into Amelia Earhart and the Easter Bunny, and we eat coconut and carry pi to infinity and celebrate a world where peace and love are more valuable than money and real estate is returned to its rightful owners and chocolate is good for you and sleep is a waste of time and slugs don’t eat flowers and everyone respects everyone else’s religious, cultural and personal choices and never does a kid’s tummy grumble in hunger and we all are in harmony with the universe and all gods are the same size and color and poetry can be traded for beans and I can wear grungy sweatpants and torn T-shirts and never comb my hair.

My fake hour would be a happy hour without the cheap drinks. Give me a pretend day, or a pretend year, and I’d really get subversive.

Jeff Eason: Daylight saving? You do the math.

Whenever I hear people talk about what they’re going to do with the extra hour of daylight I have to wonder, “Where did you go to school?” If the extra hour of daylight is so important to you, wake up earlier. Basically what the government is doing is lengthening the quilt by cutting off a foot at one end and sewing it on the other end. There is no extra hour!

It reminds me of a news story in the 1970s about an elderly woman who wrote to President Nixon complaining about daylight-saving time. She wanted him to know that the extra hour of daylight was burning up her begonias.

Seriously though. I love the fact that now when I get home from work, I will have more sunlight in the evening hours. I will use that time to prepare our garden for the summer of 2008. One of the new wrinkles in our garden this year is a beet box. No, not one of those electrical devices used by musicians to put living, breathing drummers out of work. Our beet box will be a raised bed with red, Detroit, golden and other varieties of beets growing in it. Come by this summer for a cup of fresh borscht!