She’s back. She’s that seasonal change that we remember, that, once upon a time, had younger features and a softer voice. After all these years, the seasons are alive somewhere in my brain.

Open the door of that room in the back of your mind, where somewhere on a dusty wall, pictures still hang, blurred by age, but clear enough to bring a tear. Go ahead. Open it.

You can see her. For me, all the seasons wear the same perfume and still wake me in the night with the smell of it, and some of the girlish charm and warmth of that seductive breath on the back of our necks that remind me, and you, of spring evenings so far gone you have to squint to see them.

OK, I speak here of Ms. or Mr. Daylight Saving Time. Pick your choice, float in the gardens of our youth with the lingering sunshine and the smell of flowers in cheap corsages still hanging around like those once freshly offered.

It’s seems to have been centuries since that fall when you got dumped, and your best friend went to the prom with the quarterback. And now here that love is again standing in the forever snow of winter, begging for just one more chance.

You’re older now, and weary with this winter and the memory of winters gone by, and old daylight saving time is back and knocking on your door.

I’m gonna tell you what I learned and where I learned it. I grew up reading that paper I delivered and I remember everything.

During World War II, there was someone in Skeeter O’Neal’s Tavern who got hammered and told everyone there that “President Franklin Roosevelt had reestablished the daylight saving time.” It was called “war time.” That scared the pork chops out of my mother when that story got to our kitchen.

Because you’re one of my readers who went to Catholic school with me, you recall “war time.” I barely do, but it began in February 1942 and lasted until the end of September 1945 when the boys began coming home. I had five brothers who all came home, and I learned a lot for a 10-year-old kid between Dr Peppers.

My research (you think I can remember everything? If I could I would call Rosemary) informed me that “daylight saving time (DST) was first introduced in the United States in 1918 with the Standard Time Act. The law was passed to save energy during World War I.” The Uniform Time Act of 1966 made the change uniform across the country.

Daylight saving time would begin “the last Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October.” Sometimes that would be on Halloween. I clearly remember every Halloween of my childhood, especially the ones when Mary Lister and I got under my “ghost” sheet.

What was I telling you about? … Oh yeah, daylight saving time. I get distracted when I think about sweet Mary.

Enjoy spring. P.S. Did you get ALL the clocks?

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.