I agree with President-elect Donald Trump on most things as most of you probably already realize. However, I find myself in total disagreement with his suggestion that the United States impose permanent year round Standard Time and do away with Daylight Savings Time.

Permanent Standard Time would mean big changes for all of us in our part of the Eastern Time Zone. In mid-April sunrises would be at around 5:30 a.m., 4:42 a.m. in mid-May, 4:36 a.m. In mid-June, 4:51 a.m. in mid-July, and 5:22 in mid -August. After that it gets better. But if you are someone like me who functions best with seven or eight hours of sleep during the period from mid-April to mid-August you might want to invest in heavy dark drapes like the “blackout” drapes our grandparents might have had during World War II to shield your eyes from the very early rising sun.

Trump only sleeps about four hours a night and probably has what the British call the “Thatcher Gene” based on Margaret Thatcher’s ability to function on just four hours of sleep a night. As President in his first term, he worked until midnight, or 1 a.m. and was up at 5 a.m. and back at work. He kept basically the same schedule when he was a businessman.

Believe it or not a biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, Ying-Hui-Fu has been studying short sleepers for over 20 years and has found several genes associated with short sleeping so Trumps ability to get by on four hours sleep is genetic.

Trump is very likely part of a group called the “Sleepless Elite” although I am not sure why, at least in my opinion, not getting enough sleep makes these people elite. Other short sleepers include Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George H.W. Bush who is said to have slept for as little as two hours a night. However, his son George W. Bush was just a normal seven- to eight-hour sleeper.

Sleep researchers tell us that these sleepless elites are more energetic, more outgoing, more optimistic, more ambitious, with high metabolism and a high tolerance for pain and like Superman probably, “Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

By now you are probably asking “so what is the connection if any between favoring Standard Time over Daylight Savings Time” as Trump apparently does, and being a short sleeper? The connection is that because Trump is a “short sleeper” who awakes refreshed and ready to take on another day after just four hours of sleep he really doesn’t care what time our clocks are set to. However, for many of us, me included, it does make a difference.

I am what sleep scientists refer to as a “night owl.” I go to bed in the early hours of the new day after writing this column, reading, or watching a movie and usually sleep for the next seven hours arising at midmorning. I’ve kept that schedule ever since I retired because it comes naturally to me. Even though I have always admired Ben Franklin I have never been an “early to bed, early to rise” sort of person. Therefore, I’m one those people who would have to “Sunproof” my bedroom against those very early sunrises that would occur with Standard Time in the spring and summer.

Another problem would arise because of the earlier summer sunsets. That is because I like to do yard work and mow my lawn in the late afternoon or early evening when it is cooler in the summertime.

Losing the one hour that came with Daylight Savings Time means I would probably have to procure a headlamp to weed the flower beds by and a lighting rig for my lawnmower or perhaps even a battery powered mower so I wouldn’t disturb my neighbors who might go to bed at dusk.

As far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t mind staying with the old system and “springing ahead” in March and “falling back” in November. I’ve never had much trouble adjusting to that switch.

Frankly I think that those always uncredited “scientific studies” that are said to have found an uptick in heart attacks and strokes right after the March time change are nothing more than urban legends created by “short sleeper elites.”

What I do have trouble with is adjusting to holidays like this past Christmas day that fall in the middle of the week because it confuses my internal “day of the week determining system.”

Jesus was probably born in the spring, but his birthday became Dec. 25 in the early fourth century, after Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, because that date coincided with the celebration of the winter solstice. So, if we want to avoid making people confused and sick why not have Christmas to fall on the fourth Sunday of December. This would not interfere with New Year’s as The fourth Sunday always falls between Dec. 18 and 24.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com