'Twas a time of simpler ways.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

IT WAS VINTAGE Eugene - a controversy that embroiled the left, right, students, farmers, politicians and seemingly everyone else.

Loudspeakers blared at a protest. Bumper stickers urged people to patronize only merchants who were voting the "right way." "Police Order Quiets Rally," read one Register-Guard headline.

Parents of schoolchildren banded together to stem a change they detested. Some threatened lawsuits. A Eugene mother went on strike.

The issue wasn't limited to the local level. State legislators pushed for a special session to deal with the dispute. Democrats fired verbal vollies at Republican Gov. Mark Hatfield, saying he was skirting the problem. Three coastal towns announced they were seceding from the state.

The issue? Daylight-saving time.

As we ready for the semi-annual changing of the clocks at 2 a.m. Sunday, we do so with the ho-humness of breaking out the barbecue grill or planting pansies - just a part of the yearly routine.

'Twasn't always so. In the '50s and '60s, some viewed DST as time's evil side, a sinister hour that threatened to send civilization spinning toward disaster.

Think I'm kidding? In 1961, the University of Oregon hired a new president, voters turned down the Spencer Butte Expressway, citizens nearly recalled Springfield's mayor and Duck miler Dyrol Burleson broke the American record for the mile.

The Register-Guard's No. 1 local story that year? Daylight saving time.

Some believed DST, in Dickensian terms, was the best of times, others that it was the worst of times.

"No other issue, not even fluoridation, seems to arouse such antagonism and to make such bitter partisans of citizens who usually are quite relaxed," The Register-Guard opined.

NOT THAT the issue was particularly new. The practice of setting the clock ahead an hour before summer dates back to 1914, when Cleveland, Ohio, started it. Congress approved nationwide daylight time in 1917 and the squabbling began, even though the mandate ended in 1919.

States - and in some cases, cities and towns within those states - had the freedom to decide whether to spring ahead or not. A number did. Oregon remained a staunchly standard time state, but as the idea of more evening light during the good-weather months gained steam across the nation, Oregonians went to the polls to decide the issue.

Four times from 1950 to 1960, standard time prevailed, but by smaller margins each time. Then, when Portland went daylight in May 1961, the state's clocks - and citizens - went wacky for more than a year. Other towns made the switch, too. Some businesses and schools - the UO, for example - chose to go with what became known as "fast time" or "summer time," staying with standard but moving up their hours of operation one hour.

In Eugene, you might drop your kids off at school that was on daylight time, stop by a state government office that was on standard time and go to work at a city office that was on "fast time."

Things got so confusing in 1961 that The Register-Guard began printing both times, standard and daylight, for meeting notices and news stories.

At the Bend Bulletin newspaper, the advertising department went daylight to coincide with the merchants, but the news departments stayed standard to coincide with the county.

Gov. Hatfield began wearing two watches. Gearhart, Seaside and Cannon Beach served notice that they were seceding from the state over the issue.

Amid such levity, Eugene, of course, remained its grim-faced, world-is-coming-to-an-end self. When the Eugene City Council voted to keep city clocks on standard time but move its hours of operation up one hour to 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., the protests began.

"We Don't Want a Police State," said signs at a rally, whose backers handed out bumper stickers saying "Patronize Only Standard Time Merchants."

Lawsuits were threatened. Parents complained that their kids couldn't sleep when put down at 8 o'clock - and it was still light out. A Eugene mother essentially went on strike, saying she was banning regular meals and just fixing a pot of stew so her family could eat whenever. Farmers in daylight areas howled that DST threw off their cows' morning milking schedules. "The dang rooster crows an hour later every day," said one farmer.

In November 1962, the state's voters approved the yearly shift to daylight, finally standardizing the state. Slowly, the controversy died.

A lot of time has passed since then, but perhaps none as strangely controversial as the hour we'll lose Sunday morning.