Tyranny and Triumph of the Clock

Nowhere was the tension between local and standard time more vivid than in Indiana. Before 2006, the state was a confusing patchwork of time observance. Some counties followed Daylight Saving, while others steadfastly refused. Some aligned with Chicago on Central Time, others with Ohio on Eastern Time. Locals became "time-bilingual." A dentist in Jasper might advertise appointments at 9 a.m. "slow," knowing that patients driving from Louisville, already on "fast" time, would show up at what their own clocks read as 10 a.m. The question, "Your time or my time?" became as essential as a zip code. The situation bred both confusion and comedy. In 2001, a software company famously missed its own earnings call because half the team dialed in on "fast" time and the other half on "slow." Finally, in 2006, the logistical headaches for businesses and even Little League tournaments compelled state lawmakers to adopt uniform time observance. The old idiom, however, persists, a linguistic fossil from an era when time was a negotiable treaty between neighbors.