Sleepy Time – The Final Revenge

You would think such a place as Sleepy Time would only cross my path once in my life, two times is pretty unlikely and three times – you have to think there is someone out there who really didn’t like me as a kid.

Some years later the Sleepy Time house had been abandoned. Maybe it was shut down for child abuse violations, maybe the poltergeist that inhabited the space ran everyone off, I’m not sure of the exact reason for the closer of Sleepy Time.

I grew up in the 70’s and part of the charm of the 70’s was churches started to take over your ever waking moment. Why not have ever event in your life structured around the church – who needs anything else? For parts of my childhood I was Methodist, at least in the non-summer months. Methodist as a rule are quiet people, they don’t get excited, they make sure you are out of service at noon every Sunday and generally try to handle most disputes with a casserole and some prayer already pre-written. Creativity isn’t something instilled by the Methodist experience – repetition is. It is good and safe and would rarely offend anyone, so keep that in mind if you are our shopping for a new religion.

In my early teenage years I was involved with our church’s youth group. I can remember going to camp, and a few outings but what sticks out most was the final revenge of Sleepy Time.

One thing I looked forward to when I joined the youth group was working on the haunted house. The goal was to raise money and to scare the crap out of everyone. This was back when churches allowed you to dress up as the devil for Halloween and didn’t see it as anymore crazy as great floods and giants walking the earth. I remembered some great haunted houses at church and each year they tried to top the year before.

One day while meeting our youth director informed us that had great news – we had secured a prime location on one of the major roads in town for our haunted house. The house was old and abandoned and scheduled for demolition – so we could do anything we wanted to it. Great plans began on torture chambers, coffins, and zombies.

Our youth director arranged for us to go see the location. I was asked to come even though I was new to the youth group because they needed someone who could think creatively. My only partial submersion into the Methodist life was paying off. So, off we went. As soon as we pulled in the driveway I knew where we were. It was the old Sleepy Time house. Everyone was so excited; I just wanted to throw-up. I’ve never had much of a poker face  and apparently my face betrayed my emotions the minute we walked into the empty house. I started getting ribbing about being scared and being to young. I just shook my head. I made up my mind then and there this project was going on without me; I wouldn’t come back to the youth group until after Halloween. They could have the Sleepy Time house all to themselves – and so they did. They scared the crap out of countless people for one last time as the Sleepy Time house did what just came naturally.

In the spring I rode my bike up to the Sleepy Time house to watch them tear it down. This was way beyond where I was allowed to go on my bike, but I wanted to make sure the place was gone. It is now home to the boy scout’s office – how fitting.