My most favorite day of the year? That’s easy: Springing forward to Daylight Saving Time

I have favorite days of every year.

Birthdays. Mine is not a big deal. The longest two minutes of my life are when a restaurant’s staff shows up at my table, singing, clapping. I’m OK with the complimentary dessert, though.

Holidays. Thanksgiving is my favorite. Christmas is sentimental overload. Easter is chocolate! July 4 reminds me summer is half over.

Opening Day. For the Cardinals and Blues. I need to buy a red sports jacket.

Vacation. It’s good to get away. It’s good to get home.

October days. When the weather and foliage are perfect. Sweatshirts and shorts. James Taylor on Pandora. If it felt, looked and sounded like this every day, I could not afford to live here, right?

Nothing Planned Day. It’s nice to have an occasional day when the calendar is empty . I can make it up as I go along. But I need structure. I get bored with too much free time.

A favorite day or moment is when my grandson spontaneously smiles at me when I walk into the room.

The Saturday of Final Four weekend.

Any day the Cards beat the Cubs, or the Blues beat the Blackhawks.

A day when Bob Costas is telling Musial stories on the radio, or Joe Buck is telling Jack Buck stories on TV, or a rainy day when the movies Hoosiers, Remember the Titans, Sandlot, Raising Arizona and Shawshank Redemption are on TBS successively.

My favorite, favorite day of the year?

The spring day when we spring forward and Daylight Saving Time returns.

Purpose returns to evenings.

More than time changes. My mood and attitude change, too. When it’s 6:30 p.m., I’m considering a walk or bike ride instead of putting on jammies for bed.

The hardest part about winter is not the weather but the darkness. It’s dark when I leave for work, dark when I return. The extra darkness messes with me, mentally and physically.

By my unscientific study, we lose four hours of light daily in winter. In summer, it’s still light at 8:30 p.m. In winter, it can be dark at 4:30 p.m.

I miss those four hours of light every day.

An extra hour of daylight in the morning?

Close the blinds, please.

It will take me a few days to determine what time it is, really. I’m getting to all my wrist watches reset, one by one, as I wear them. I have many watches. Shoes, wrist watches and bobbleheads. We all have our various levels of nerdiness, right?

Evenings as a child

My fondness for evenings is a carryover from childhood. When not in school, our free days were broken up into three periods. Morning, afternoon and evening. Evening was the most fun.

We had ballgames at the old St. Philip’s Grade School fields. When we didn’t have our own games, we were hanging around the grounds, watching friends play, and eating sno-cones and little bags of the best popcorn ever from the concession stand.

We crammed a lot of fun in our evenings. When not hanging around the school grounds, we were in the neighborhood, playing Kick the Can or having contests to see who could catch and fit the most lightning bugs in a jar.

The day ended at dusk, when the street lights flickered. I knew I’d better walk in the front door or get Mom’s disappointed look. You could ground me. Spank me. Nothing hurt more than Mom’s disappointed look.

That love for evenings has carried into adulthood. It’s good to be able to be active outdoors after work. Bike rides. Walks. Ballgames.

I’m ready for Daylight Saving Time.

Time to put the bike rack back on the SUV.

Purpose has returned to evenings.

If I wore a mood ring today, it would alternate from bright yellow for increased light, to red for the start of baseball season. Maybe forest green, too. It is my most favorite color, on a most favorite day.