Time to get used to time again, a different concept of time. Switzerland and the rest of Europe moved the clocks back an hour last night, ending the period of Daylight Savings Time. At 6:00 p.m., it now is dark outside. In July, I could still come back from a walk with the dogs in the last light of day at 9:00 p.m. Much as I hate the annual turning back of the clocks and rejoice when they are pushed forward in the Spring, the practice of changing the clocks seems an immutable fact, a worldwide occurrence. As it turns out, Switzerland, naturally, moved to its own beat in accepting the idea of changing the hours of daylight.

There is an old phrase which often is cited whenever Switzerland chooses a solitary path: Die Schweizer ticken anders. Ticken, like the tick of a clock. A literal translation would be something like the Swiss tick differently. In this case, Switzerland’s clocks really did tick differently, as the country refused to follow the rest of Europe in 1980 in changing to Daylight Savings Time. Keep in mind that Switzerland is a tiny country tucked right into Europe. The borders with France, Germany and Italy are right there, flanking Switzerland. So Switzerland became a little island of its own time right in the middle of Europe. Trains would run on a European time frame but would stall coming into Switzerland. The extraordinary train arrangements cost the country about 15 million francs. Overtime had to be paid to all the foreign workers who daily crossed the borders to work in Switzerland. It was the farmers who had the power to stop time, organizing a collection of 82,000 signatures in 3 months, more than double the amount necessary to force a referendum (on a vote which had previously allowed the institution of DST). As one farmer recalled on a radio program yesterday, the cows suffered; their milk production went on running on standard time. Delays in milking caused swelling and pain. And so Switzerland stalled too, holding out for a year before finally deciding to step in time with the rest of Europe in the summer of 1981. I continue to be amazed by the power of the people here in Switzerland.