Growing up we lived way out in the country. There were no street lights, we had no property lights, and my dad would not allow a light to be left on in the house at night. It got really dark, especially when there was no moon. And, I was really afraid of the dark. And for good cause!

You hear said that “there’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark”. That’s just a lie anyway, and in my world there were indeed things to be afraid of in the dark. My brothers. We had a seniority system in our house. And as the youngest of eight children, I had none. Hazing was alive and well in our family system too. The younger ones just needed to be teased and scared some to help them “toughen up” and grow up. As a boy, I guess I especially needed “toughened up”. Sleeping in 90 degree heat in the summer without a fan or air conditioning while fighting off mosquitoes wasn’t enough, I suppose. And sleeping in a bedroom where you could about see your breath on cold winter mornings was not enough to get that toughening done either I surmise as well. I needed hazed. We all did, of course. And, believe me, I got hazed.

I “slept around” (that means I hadn’t been assigned a bed yet as far as I remember) in our house until I finally was assigned a bed with my two brothers closest in age to me. It was a full-size bed and we got really close. One of the brothers was just a year and a half older and we were about the same size (Jack for those that know me). The other was about eight years older than I (Tom, for those that might know him). Tom was one of the two middle children in the family. He’d been “toughed up” really well himself by the two oldest brothers in the family! From the stories I heard it was clear he learned how to torment, I mean haze, from two of the best. And learn well he did.

Let’s see, we had the Tingler. The Tingler was an extremely frightening “thing”. My brother had seen a scary movie by that name. This was some sort of vicious spider kind of creature that did awful things to people. He lived in our room, under our bed (as did other particularly vicious beings and creatures). Now even if we’d looked for him under the bed, which we didn’t, we couldn’t have found him in the mess that lay there. But the Tingler was alive, active, in our bedroom, and to be greatly feared. It was always a wonderful source of torment, when older brother needed.

Then there was the “Middle Man”. This was a very evil person who lived under our bed as well and lived solely to torment me when I managed to get to sleep in the middle. I had wrongly reckoned that in the middle I’d be protected from things that would come into our room via the door (and things indeed did come in through that door to get me). I’d also be protected from things that might burst through the window and/or screen to get me if I slept on the inside next to that window. Hence having no seniority whatsoever, I slept closest to the door in the summer (away from any possible breeze) and closest to the window in the window (when it was cold of course). And, you think I’m lying. I’m not. I woke up a few times with the cover frozen to the window on the inside! (Just before I walked to school barefoot in the snow.)

Because of seniority my oldest of the two got first choice of sleeping position, my favored brother just older than I got second choice, and I got no choice. Hence, my older brother slept away from the window in the cold and next to it when there was any hope of a slight whiff of wind in the heat of the summer. He also got a favored position with the covers as well. So when I told on them to my mom and she made them let me sleep in the middle to be shielded from the lurking evil on one side by my 30-pound brother (I’m not joking either) and by my teenage brother on the other (boy, was I safe!), you guessed it, the Middle Man would show up every time! The main evidence was a hand coming up from the top of the bed trying to “get me”. (Why the heck would a hand want me in the first place, huh?) If I closed my eyes it would reach over my face, and then it’d then disappear when I opened my eyes. I would finally move to the undesirable side each time and then he’d leave. I knew the hand was my older brothers as the smell was unmistakable, but it was still scary. He was scary!