The longest day

Yesterday, in case you missed it, was what is known as the summer solstice. In layperson's terms, this is when the sun is in the sky longer than on any other day of the year, except for during Joshua's time in the Old Testament when the sun stood still for an entire day, causing most of the Israelites to rejoice.*


What this means is that from now until the end of the year, the number of hours of daylight is going to start shrinking, shrinking, a little bit every day, until sometime in December when we will have approximately 4 1/2 minutes of daylight (6 1/5 if you are close to the equator). Not to be the harbinger of doom or anything, but we might as well bring these painful facts out into the open.


At our house the summer solstice passed fairly quietly. Surrounded as we are by hills and trees, the sun seems to set several minutes earlier than it does just a mile or two away. We can leave our house in almost darkness on a late-evening errand, and arrive at Target several minutes later in broad daylight. (We can arrive at Target, but it is more likely, if we are going out late on a summer evening, that we will arrive at an establishment that sells ice cream.)


From longstanding tradition, the summer solstice signals the beginning of summer, which seems like it would mean the days will be longer now rather than shorter. This confusion is due to a mishap by an astronomy graduate student in 8672 B.C., who never could get all those solstices and equinoxes straight. 


Daylight extends much longer into the evening in some parts of the world than others. We suspect it has something to do with the relative strength of various power company unions, but have never been able to substantiate this. 


In some places, like Hawaii, the sun sets very early on summer evenings, plunging the islands into darkness at about 6:30 in the evening. This explains a lot of things, such as why there are luaus. The tourists need something to do in the evenings. Unfortunately for those same tourists, the sun rudely awakens them at about 4:23 the next morning. The power company there obviously needs to settle whatever long-standing dispute it has with the union.


In northern climates, of course, there is an abundance of daylight during the summer, as much as 26 hours per day. This is to make up for the winters in those areas, a time when the sun hardly shines at all and residents become very SAD. Coincidentally, this is also a time when much poetry is written.


This post must be short, as today is shorter than yesterday (.002 hours). By December, there will be hardly anything left to rea


*The others said, "Enough with the sun already! This heat is miserable."