Dans Hamptons

If time is money, then every man, woman and child on the North Fork is rich. Here’s why. With the extension of daylight-saving time (three weeks now, one week in the fall) we’ve been handed 28 additional hours of daylight, hours we can put to good use by extending our work day. Isn’t work what people are supposed to do during daylight hours? Most of us sleep when it’s dark, right?

Those 28 hours come to us as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This year daylight-saving extends from March 11 until November 4.

So this is how we’re rich. Even if we make just minimum wage (in New York it’s $7.15 an hour) then 28 times that amount is $200.28. (Please don’t think I’m bragging but I was pretty good at arithmetic.) And when I saw how much I could earn in this year’s extended daylight-saving hours, I felt like writing to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. I’d like to thank them for whipping up all that extra money.

I’m not sure if daylight-saving money is taxed. Even so, it’s a windfall to most North Forkers. And if we go right out and spend that $200.28 at a farm stand, maybe, or for coffee ice cream, it will be some big shot in the economy’s arm.

True, I don’t know bull from bear about economics but just as long as North Forkers spend, I guess that’s good. Although my grandma told me it was better to save.

Anyway, I’m more interested in what North Forkers are going to do with those extra 28 daylight hours. Most of us complain we don’t have a minute to spare and yet here we are with 1,680 daylight minutes dumped into our lives. Why, we’ll be able to do just everything.

To get us going, let’s find out what a few North Forkers mean to do with those 1,680 minutes. That is, if they don’t work more hours at their regular jobs. For example, I’m thinking about practicing the piano. I do it only occasionally now, but if I spent l,680 minutes at it, I know I’d make a certain New Suffolk piano teacher happy. A number of years ago I took some brush-up lessons from Patsy Rogers. I recall the hurt in her eyes as I mistreated Mozart and brutalized Bach. Maybe I can make it up to Patsy before November 4.

Long before that November day, three women who work in Riverhead will do their town proud. Their 28 hours each are gonna be busy, that’s for sure. Barbara Jamison has a deck to bleach and stain (so do I), but more important to her is her flower garden. The one she’s starting and the one she didn’t finish last fall. She’s thinking daylilies, especially the Lemon Yellow variety. “They were mom’s favorite,” recalls Barbara.

Eileen Rafuse will be working outside, too. In every one of those extra hours. Her fishpond (more than 35 shimmering fish beauties) is in the middle of a waterfall construction. Eileen’s been working hard on it for a while now. But oh, it’s so easy to sit back for just a moment and watch, just watch. So pass the daylight hours, Eileen.

There’s no chance for Sabrina Nace to sit back and relax. She’ll be outside with her eight-year-old son David and they’ll be playing ball. Sabrina mentioned something about getting David to weed. I didn’t attempt to explain the facts of life to her. In any case, David, who attends Riverhead Charter School, doesn’t get home until 5 p.m. so an hour of extra daylight is good for the whole family, says mom Sabrina.

His whole Southold family seems to be in on Joey Flythe’s use of those 28 hours. Or at least his wife Deanna is. Joey has volunteered, shall we say, to paint their bathroom (the one with a window to the west). Great! Deanna has chosen the color, sandy beige, and Joey can wield the brush until the sun sets late.

By the way, Deanna plans early dinners on Joey’s painting nights and she’ll serve up the paint brush with dessert. Just in case Joey has second thoughts.

Well, it’s pretty clear how North Forkers keep out of trouble. For the most part, they’re working at something beautiful. Flowers, music, painting, playing ball, watching the fishes.

Time Is Money, We Got More Of It

What North Forkers Will Do With Some Extra Time