For Openers, He Can Sneak Daylight Past a Rooster

It’s time you met a man who sounds like he would rather fight than switch. He’s Lincoln Webster Burnham, a Dunbarton, N.H., farmer who sees no sense in having people change from daylight-saving time to standard time and vice versa. “They can’t seem to understand my logic, that you can do everything on the time that you have,” Burnham said. “You want to get up earlier? All you have to do is do it. The city people, they can’t seem to figure out how to get up earlier.” Once upon a time, the 78-year-old Yankee did accept the changes. He says he went along with them during World War II--but strictly out of patriotism. Simply put, his thinking goes like this: “I call it daylight- nuisance time, and that’s all it is. You make liars out of your clocks and fools out of your people.” His outspoken opposition to the clock adjustment last spring led to an appearance on the “Late Night With David Letterman” TV show. Burnham says he worked his 238-acre farm without regard to the hands of a clock: “I used to work on what I called mosquito time. When the mosquitoes came, it was time to quit.” For now, Burnham is content to believe it’s the rest of us who are behind the times.

--Mayor Thomas Whalen III of Albany, N.Y., knows how it feels to be the man in the middle. A plan to name one of the Navy’s nuclear attack submarines after the historic city has drawn the ire of church leaders in the area, and they have urged Whalen to oppose it. The idea of naming the sub Albany, in honor of the city’s 300th anniversary, originated with Rep. Samuel S. Stratton (D-N.Y.). In a letter to Whalen, the clerics said: “We believe that to put Albany’s name on such a vessel . . . does not reflect the grass-roots commitment of the people of Albany to reversing the arms race and living in a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation.” The mayor has decided to tread water. He says he is neutral but will forward the letter to Stratton.

--It may not be spectacular, but Ohio State University’s Optometry Clinic exhibit is a spectacle of sorts. It’s a collection of 50 pairs of eyeglasses worn by the “rich, famous and nearsighted.” Some of the celebrities who donated glasses: Sophia Loren, Dean Martin, Vice President George Bush and former President Gerald R. Ford. “These are people whose vision is crucial to their success--people like Charles Schulz, the ‘Snoopy’ cartoonist,” says Arol Augsburger, a professor who organized the exhibit. Columnist George F. Will said he couldn’t afford to contribute because he once ran over a pair of glasses and figures it could happen again.