DALLAS — As we know from the common and familiar complaints we hear every year, Daylight Saving Time is still a frustrating and annoying adjustment to many.
But we have been doing it now for more than 50 years in Texas. If you still struggle with springing forward, just imagine how jarring it was those first few times an hour of time disappeared.
In fact, old WFAA stories archived in the SMU Jones Film Library captured the confusion after Texas first began observing DST in 1966.
Reporter Doug Fox asked strangers on the street if they planned on moving their clocks forward or backward an hour. The variety of differing answers and uncertainty show how the prospect of a time-change was a tough task for s generation who did not have the benefit of smartphones and watches programmed to automatically make the switch for them.
Some said they wished they could return to the days when no clock changes were necessary and one of the loudest critics of DST came from drive-in movie owners and customers.
The extra hour of daylight cut into business as they could not project movies onto the drive-in screen without the aid of darkness. A group of owners hired an attorney to take their case to Austin and try and lobby lawmakers to do away with DST.
However, 5 decades later, Daylight Saving Time is still here. And drive-in theaters are mostly a thing of the past.