Our clocks were set 20 minutes ahead when I was growing up. My mother didn\u2019t want us to be late for school, for church, for doctor\u2019s appointments, for city buses, for anything. She started this time trickery at five minutes; when we caught on she moved it up another five, and finally ended it at 20 minutes. <\/p>\n
My sister and I looked at the clock and subtracted 20 minutes. A lot of families set their clock ahead, though I think our 20 minutes was at the extreme end of the spectrum. <\/span><\/p>\n It was a be-on-time era. Punctuality was highly valued. I still have an ingrained impulse to deduct 20 minutes when I look at a clock; I have to consciously turn it off, even though it\u2019s been 60 years since I left home. I\u2019m still stuck with the \u201cbe-on-time\u201d mentality. That never left me. Most of the time I\u2019m early. It goes along with the aging process. That old adage, \u201cThe early bird gets the worm,\u201d is a credo for old coots. <\/p>\n If you have a party that\u2019s scheduled it for 7 p.m. you can expect the old coots to show up at seven on the dot. The rest of your guests, the polite ones, arrive at 7:15 or later. That punctuality mentality and clocks set ahead worked for us when we were kids growing up. We didn\u2019t have smart phones or smart watches. Our watches were dumb; they didn\u2019t keep good time, especially when we forgot to wind them. We relied on house clocks set 20 minutes ahead. <\/p>\n