By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
TRAVERSE CITY -- Mention daylight saving time, and Grant Dittmar likely will chuckle.
That's because many still believe Dittmar turns the clocks and watches at his Petoskey shop -- all 700 or 800 of them -- forward this time of year.
Alas, "I just don't bother to do them," said Dittmar, owner of Dittmar's Chronotech downtown. "It's just not practical. I just do the more obvious ones inside the store."
Daylight saving time began at 2 a.m. today, effectively moving an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening and ostensibly conserving energy. But for all its conveniences, the practice can be a headache for some.
Whether it's having to change multiple timepieces, like Dittmar, hauling out the ladder to reach out-of-the-way dials or combing the car's glove box for the digital clock instructions, springing forward isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Joe Frost has maintained the "Martinek's clock" in downtown Traverse City since he opened a shoestore in the former Martinek's Jewelers in 2008. The eight-day weight-driven mechanical clock has been a Front Street landmark since it was installed in front of the store in 1914. The clock was made by the Seth Thomas Co. in 1904 and still has its original works.
To set it forward, employees have to open a small door in the clock's steel base, loosen the mechanism that holds the wheel responsible for keeping time, spin the wheel clockwise to the correct time (a dial in the base corresponds to the two dials on the clock), then lock the wheel in place again. Finally they have to crank up the weight at the back of the clock with a special wrench.
"It's a fairly simple process, but it stops traffic," said Frost, owner of Robert Frost Fine Footware. "It interests people if they've walked past it or driven past it a million times."
Employee Lauren Flynn said the trickiest part of the clock is getting it started after it stops, a procedure that once took her 20 minutes.
"It's not fun when it stops, not at all," Flynn said, "especially when it's cold outside."
Sherry and Russ Sutherby "opted out" of daylight saving time last March and said they don't intend to set their clocks again.
The couple live on a 40-acre farm with dozens of animals and find it easier to keep feedings at the same time throughout the year.
"With the animals it's just too hard to make a change," said Sherry Sutherby of Russ-Stick Farms in Mancelona. "They get used to their schedule and it's hard to change them gradually. The cows are like clockwork. At 4 in the afternoon the first bellow is on the dot."
Living by their own clock -- an hour ahead of most Americans eight months of the year -- also fits the couple's laid-back lifestyle and reminds Sutherby of the Amish from whom she has bought sheep.
"We live in a rustic cabin, we use an outhouse, and we don't have a TV," said Sutherby, a state employee and musher who offers sled-dog rides on the farm. "We just kind of pretend we're in Alaska instead of northern Michigan."
Sarah Murnen doesn't care if it's Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Time -- as long as it's the same time year-round.
"Pick one. Just put us on one time or the other and stop changing it," said the Kalkaska woman, who calls daylight saving time "a bunch of foolishness."
"It's just the changing all the time," she added. "Now they've changed the date of change. It's very confusing."
Murnen said she usually turns her clocks forward one or two at a time until eventually they're all on daylight saving time. But when it comes to her car clock, she sometimes leaves well enough alone.
"I did have one that was complicated, and I just let that one roll around" until the next year, she said.
Forgetting to change the clock also can result in embarrassing social gaffes. Just ask Lane Corbin, who got tripped up one year when she was supposed to meet her now-former mother-in-law and a friend for the Old Mission Tavern's signature "chicken dinner."
"I had neglected to reset my clock to 'spring forward,' and I arrived one full hour late for lunch," said Corbin, of Traverse City. "The two ladies had, of course, given up on me and ordered -- and nearly consumed -- their meals when I, still clueless, arrived with cheerful greetings and growling stomach. After a brief reminder that daylight saving time had taken place much earlier that morning, they were gracious but not overly talkative as I hurriedly and contritely ate my meal.
"Not being a morning person," Corbin added, "I love 'springing forward' and hate 'falling back.'"
Lake Leelanau native Marcia Couturier recalls the year she arrived for church there just in time for Holy Communion and the final blessing.
"I set my purse down by the last pew and slipped in line," said Couturier, who now lives in Gladstone in the Upper Peninsula. "It's the shortest service I ever went to."
Now, though she turns her clocks forward "religiously" the Saturday night before, Couturier has a better idea for daylight saving time.
"Why don't they go halfway in between Standard and Daylight time and leave it year-round?" she said. "Next time we're supposed to spring forward, let's set the clock ahead a half hour and leave it there."
