Dear Editor:

I am much in favor of all of the waste reduction and fraud exposure that Trump, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy seem to be going after (I have researched and, depending on who you believe we have over $320 million per day of fraud and waste in the Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security systems).

But, I do not understand attacking daylight saving time. Daylight saving time tends to push sunshine to later hours, making for glorious long bright days in the spring, summer and early fall months.

For all of us who were raised on a farm and who had to do chores after we got home from school, daylight saving time allowed us to do our chores in the daylight and not to have to finish up in the dark in those late spring and early fall days.

For those of us who participated in after work sports in the spring and fall, and especially for those who coached their kids in baseball, softball and soccer, it was certainly better to practice and to play in the natural sunlight than it was to play on the dimly lighted fields in small towns, or even big cities. In my experience, soccer fields, T-ball fields, youth league fields and especially practice fields usually didn’t have lights.

As far as adult sports, I have played about 1,200 games of baseball and softball, and I always much preferred trying to catch those fly balls in the sunlight, rather than on those poorly lit fields. When it comes to golf, without daylight saving time there would be no way to get in a full nine holes before dark when you usually can get to the golf course only after 6 p.m.

In large cities, it made more sense to play a two-hour round after work than it was to play on the weekend when it took five and a half to six hours to play a round.

For you fishermen and hunters, you wouldn’t have much time to fish or hunt after work if you didn’t get to the lake or to the game site until an hour before dark. Also, I know people who have jobs in town that still like to farm or do “side jobs” to make a little extra money, and they usually work this in between 6 p.m. and dark. With no daylight saving time, these people would probably not have time for after work farming or side jobs.

One of the biggest benefits to me is that it provides almost free-energy daylight time for parents and grandparents to take their/our kids and grandkids out of the house after work and after supper, so that the kids can participate in some activity that helps burn up some calories, instead of them (the kids) spending so much time reading and texting on their cell phone.

I realize that some people say they have a concern because it throws off their internal clock. If this truly is a large problem, then I guess we ought to prohibit vacationing or doing business in different time zones here in America, and I suppose that no one should be allowed to travel to a foreign country with a time difference of 6-10 hours, or more.

Regardless, I feel that there is energy savings by having daylight saving time, and it is much more beneficial to have daylight saving time than to do away with it.

I am sending copies of this letter to President Trump and to my Congressman and Senators (contact info at WH.gov, senate.gov, congress.gov). If you readers feel the same way I do, please contact the President, your senators and your congressman and tell them how you feel about losing daylight saving time. Thank you.

Lynn Hilburn

Cassville