In his interview on O’Reilly last night, Tom Wolfe said that in his

researches for his recent college novel, he discovered that U.S.

college students typically go to bed at 2, 3, or 4 a.m.

This strikes me as very shocking. Staying up late at night is one of those

things that seems thrilling when you are 12 or 13 years old — so grown up!

so SOPHISTICATED!! — but boring and pointless when you get to the age where

you can actually do it. Sure, I pulled a few late nights at college; but

there was always a small voice inside me (perhaps it was Johnnie)

whispering: “This is stupid. I ought to be in bed.”

I was brought up, in fact, to believe that staying up late at night was a

sign of loose morals, like living in a flat (i.e. apartment — as opposed to

living in a house, as respectable people do). In fact, I got the definite

impression that people who lived in flats and people who stayed up past ten

were very probably THE SAME PEOPLE — and to be avoided, at peril of one’s

soul.

Nobody not working a night shift has any reason to be up after ten. You may

say that being a “lark” or an “owl” is a matter of nature, and there isn’t

anything one can do about it. (This is what my wife, an insomniac owl,

actually DOES say.) Fiddlesticks. If Ma Nature had meant us to stay up

late, she would have given us night vision.

Listen to me, youth of America:

—An hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours after.

—Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

—Nothing much happens after ten that you can’t catch up on in the morning.

—Dawn is the most peaceful and prettiest time of day.

—”Isn’t it past your bedtime, Calvin?” — Groucho Marx, spotting President

Coolidge in the audience at an evening performance.