Love Letter to the Central Time Zone

I am happy that Anders will grow up in the Central Time Zone. We have lived in the Eastern Time Zone for the past eight years. Anyone who knows me realizes that TV has been a big part of my life. Television is a cruel mistress in the Eastern Time Zone. I appreciate the evening news at 6:30 pm, but the 7-8 pm hour of infotainment is worthless. Football games starting at 1 pm on Sunday is just too late. Games of all sort end near or after midnight.

Then end of prime time is also my cue to go to bed, which in Ohio is 11 pm rather than 10 pm.

Living in the Central Time Zone gives Anders at least a fighting chance of finishing a Sunday or Monday Night Football Game, but probably still not a World Series game, if he is inclined toward sports.

I also like watching "Hardball" and "PTI" during the four o'clock hour.

The Eastern Time Zone was even annoying on the radio. I often ran errands with Anders during the eight o'clock hour since "The Dan Patrick Show" didn't come on the radio until 9 am. That problem would be avoided in Central Time.

Is there too much of a good thing e.g. earlier in the day sports viewing? No. As I've said before, all things being equal, I'd live in Southern California. Watching sports is a reason for this preference, along with perfect weather, constant sunshine and a scenic landscape.

I would like the Mountain Time Zone as well, but they always get forgotten. When I was a kid, shows were promoted this way, "The Dukes of Hazard, tonight at eight, seven Central and Mountain." At some point in the 90s, TV executives decided to drop the "and Mountain" from the promos. I read a stat recently that only about 4% of Americans live in the Mountain Time Zone. That seemed too small until I thought about it. Only a few states are primarily in the Mountain Time Zone: ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, NM, and AZ--and AZ is only in Mountain Time for part of the year since they refuse to save daylight. So technically, it is always Mountain Standard Time in Phoenix, but in practice for eight months a year it is the same time in Tucson as LA not Denver.

These are the things I think about. I get excited talking about such things. I'm sure Anders can't wait to join the conversation about time zones. Two months from now, when Anna reads this, she will say, "Time zones?! You did a post on time zones?! What does that have to do with Anders?" I hope that I have answered that question tangentially.

What this means for you, Dear Reader, is that you will not have to wait much longer for my discussion of my favorite sports radio shows during my two years at home with Anders.