What Time Is It?

In July of 1960, between our junior and senior years in high school, my friend David Lord and I took a month-long trip which included New York City.  We were in New York for two nights and stayed in the Y.M.C.A. downtown Manhattan.

We arrived in the city mid-afternoon after traveling by bus all day from Greenfield, Massachusetts, where we had gone with his parents on vacation.  The last leg of our journey that day was on the subway into lower Manhattan.

After checking into our room on the sixth floor of the Y.M.C.A. David and I both felt exceptionally tired after traveling all day, so he suggested that we sleep for a while before our first big night in the city.  I agreed and we both went to sleep dreaming of a great time on the streets around the famous Times Square.

I awoke later and looked at my watch which showed a few minutes before six-o’clock.  I shook David awake and told him that we needed to get going; we did not want to miss out on what was waiting for us in The Big Apple.  Evidently, he felt so refreshed from the sleep that he wondered if we had slept all night, so he asked me, “Is that six-o’clock in the evening or six-o’clock in the morning?”  We wondered and worried if we had actually slept all night!  We looked out the window, which did not help any, because all we could see was into the courtyard of the large Y.M.C.A. building.  Only a small patch of sky was visible above the building’s top.  It was overcast and the appearance indicated that it could be either late afternoon or early morning.

David finally suggested that we go down to the first floor and ask the desk clerk.  Using the elevator, we hurried to the front desk and found a middle-aged man busy with another customer.  After impatiently waiting a few minutes David asked the clerk, “Sir, could you tell me what time it is?”  The clerk looked around at the rather large white-faced clock on the column behind him (and directly in front of us).  He said, “It’s six-o’clock,” and turned to help another customer.

Feeling ridiculous, I said to David, “You’re going to have to ask him.” 

After waiting another few minutes for the desk clerk to finish with the customer, David asked, “Sir, could you tell us if that is six-o’clock p.m. or a.m.?”  To our great relief, the puzzled-looking clerk answered, “It’s p.m.”  We two small-town boys excitedly were off for a night in the big city! 

If illegal drug use was as rampant as now, he would have assumed that he had a couple of guys who were high on something!