A man holds a radio-controlled model glider with a sunset sky in the background. The shiny black surface of the wing is covered in dew, which is highlighted by the camera. He is wearing a white, knitted Aran wool hat and a grey, fleece pullover. (📸 Terence C. Gannon)
Dad, jumping at the first of the evening light just after the clocks were turned forward for the summer. (📸 author)
Spring Forward
Why I hope the annual switch to daylight savings time is never eliminated.
By Terence C. Gannon

Where I live daylight saving time was first enacted in 1918, ostensibly as a means of increasing production during the First World War. 1 It was abandoned after hostilities ended but then reinstated again for World War II. Canada remained ‘sprung forward’ year-round for these latter war years. Since then, it has remained as a twice-yearly ritual for most jurisdictions in this country and in many places around the world, albeit reversed in southern climes, of course.

Over the years, the dates have been tweaked backwards and forwards a bit, and there are routinely debates about the merits of either retaining or abandoning it. But here we are, nearly eighty years later, yet again enduring a week where many of us Canucks feel a little jet-lagged, having missed out on an hour of precious sleep. And just when it was getting light in the morning.

For the record, I’m firmly in favour of retaining it as-is. But for a very selfish and some would say silly and sentimental reason. And certainly one that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever outside my sample size of exactly one.  Me.

I like the annual rite of spring because it reminds me of my dad.

The Monday after the Sunday — weather permitting — was when I would get a call from him to say he was going to be at the playing fields near his home in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

“Meet you there?” he would say, cheerily and hopefully. After a long, wet, west coast winter, the fields were a soupy, super-humid, muddy mess, but it never deterred him. Having a bite to eat and then grabbing the glider and transmitter and heading out to catch the last of the fading evening light was his priority number one in the late winter as it drifted into spring.

On the left, a man holds his radio-controlled model glider with a sunset sky in the background. The orientation of the photograph is portrait. He is wearing a white, knitted, Aran wool hat and a grey, fleece pullover. He is holding a radio-control transmitter used to control the glider. Two white tags are attached to the antenna of the transmitter with the numbers « 3 » and « 8 » on them, respectively. On the right is another photograph of the same man holding his radio-controlled model glider but in this case facing away from the camera. He is wearing a white, knitted, Aran wool hat and a grey, fleece pullover. A green, sports field is visible in the background along with soccer goalposts. (📸 Terence C. Gannon)

The brushed motor maven. (📸 author)

Dad was an early adopter of electric technology back in the pre-brushless days. That brushed motor in that battered, dewey Frankenglider would have been handily out-climbed by Lindbergh on the way to Paris. For him, it just seemed like a recurring, predictable miracle that climbing without the aid of a cantankerous, whiny Cox .020 or .049 was even an option.

Later, he bought and flew a very sporty Sunfly for his evening flying adventures. That may have actually been one of the first-generation brushless motors but paired with an undoubtedly clapped-out nickel-cadmium battery pack. However, the odd time I got out to see him fly, its performance, while not a patch on anything of today’s generation of radio-controlled gliders, was pretty amazing for its time.

A montage of two photos: on the left is a picture of a man in a flat-brimmed trucker hat and another, younger man wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans and a purple fleece pullover. The man on the left is holding a radio-control transmitter and the one on the right is holding a model glider — called a Sunfly — with a white fuselage and yellow flying surfaces. In the second photo, on the right, the same model glider is flying with a background of clear blue sky. (📸 Terence C. Gannon)

Left: Dad with his bouffant, oh-so-stylish, flat-brimmed trucker hat and me wearing my mom jeans and still with a full head of hair. Right: The Sunfly flew very well, and Dad was really proud of mastering the slippery airframe. It’s still a nice-looking glider. (📸 author)

After the sun was well and truly down, Dad and I would sometimes return to my folks’ home on Williams Road, and Mum would make some tea and often have something home-baked to eat. We’d catch up on nothing in particular.

To say my father was an RC glider enthusiast understates the case by a wide margin. He was slightly obsessed — but in a good way, of course. It’s what made me a little obsessed, too — it was just one of the many great gifts he gave me.

When you lose your parents — particularly if you’re close to them, as I was — one thing you’ll miss a lot, as I do, is the absolutely and utterly unconditional attaboys they always had at the ready. I didn’t often deserve them, if ever, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could still get one from them every once in a while, even today. It’s because nothing — absolutely nothing — ever quite replaces that unassailable encouragement.

So it’s at this time of year, with the clock springing forward, I think a lot about my dad, and I think a lot about my mum, and I think about those happy evenings in Richmond with them along with those unwarranted attaboys. It almost goes without saying that I now deeply regret all the times I said I was ‘busy’ and would have to miss spending some time chasing planes around those soggy fields. What’s sad in retrospect is I have absolutely no clue what occupied my time such that I was not able to meet him for an evening flight. Nothing I can remember, of course.

Now I would give just about anything to be able to do it just one more time, sometime around this time of year.

©2025 Terence C. Gannon

1 The article entitled The History of Daylight Saving Time from the University Canada West website is a great resource on the subject.

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An earlier version of this article appeared in the March 2023 edition New RC Soaring Digest.

Thanks for reading. 🙌🏻