Fast Time

Todd is complaining about Montana geography. Poor guy; I'd be bewildered, too.

Here in the Hooiser state we have no problems with direction. Up is north, and down is south, just as it should be.

However, what we have issues with is time. We are schizophrenic about that. Several counties in the NW follow Central Time, while another batch in the south stay on Eastern. And we change our clocks to reflect the shifts to and from Daylight Savings Time.

The vast majority of the state, however, does not do so. They proudly and defiantly refuse to bow to peer pressure, regardless of how persuasive the argument might seem ("No damfool idjot fed'ral gub'mint's gonna tell me how to set my clock!"). This is a county-by-county decision.

So, in the summer, like now, most of the state seems to be on Central Time. In the winter this shifts, when some neighbors change clocks, and others don't. For example, the clocks in my diocesan offices, located in South Bend, are currently showing the same time as the ones here, in the northwest corner. Come the last Sunday in October, however, I will change, and they won't; so my bishop's watch will read an hour later than mine. At that point, he will have the same numbers on his digital as my mother-in-law, down in New Albany, when she "falls back" to Eastern Standard Time.

This is why you will often hear references to "fast time," or "slow time." This has nothing to do with the speed at which time is moving. Instead, it lets you know what the clock will say at the location of the party/game/whatever, and how that compares with the clocks of those folks down the road, who may be attending from the next county over.

Confused? Welcome to Indiana.