Tom Carty likes sunlit evenings so he can practice his hobby, carving wooden whales and other creatures of the sea, outside. His wife, Sue, a teacher, prefers sunny mornings because her stud ents, first graders and kindergarteners, are more awake.
As Americans move their clocks an hour ahead tomorrow, giving themselves an hour more of sunlight in the evenings and an hour less in the mornings, the Cartys find themselves on opposite sides of the daylight saving time divide.
Ever since last year, when Congress moved daylight saving time three weeks earlier than normal, the opposing camps have moved farther apart, dividing those who like bright mornings from those who like bright evenings.
"I think it's the best thing that could happen," Tom Carty, 63, said of extended daylight saving time, as he walked with Sue around Castle Island in South Boston an hour before sunset this week. "I love getting more sunlight."
Sue Carty, 60, shook her head.
"I like getting it early in the morning when I get up for school," she said, as the sun dipped low over the horizon of barren trees, three-deckers, and screaming gulls. "I think it's a happier time when it's lighter earlier."
US Representative Edward J. Markey sponsored the change in daylight saving time, promising that it would combat crime, economic woes, car crashes, and depression, all while saving energy. He said that "people are constantly thanking me for moving daylight saving time earlier in the year, because for them that signals the beginning of spring."
"All but that small minority will be very glad on Sunday evening that it is still daylight late into the evening," he said.
MICHAEL LEVENSON
