That year Bill-Ike happened to read in a magazine, “Nobody can go 80
days without sleep.” Just to prove this wasn’t so, the old gentleman
began by denying himself sleep for a continuous stretch of 83 days.
In 1929 he “experimented” again, keeping awake 147 days. Then the
sleeplessness became more of a habit. But, each year he bettered his
own record and in 1933 he rounded out his first full year of going
without sleep. Finally, Bill-Ike achieved the amazing five-year record,
and he was going into his sixth year when he passed on.
He was in fine fettle almost to the end, a firm believer in the gospel
of hard toil. During vacation seasons he kept busy tending the gardens
and being the handyman for summer cottagers. A bachelor--“always
been willin’ but the right gal ain’t ever showed up”--Bill-Ike lived
with his brother, Fred, in a century-old house in a spot remote from
the town. Fred would have his regular eight or nine hours in bed,
undisturbed by Bill-Ike’s poking about the house at all hours of the
night.
“Sure, I could enjoy a full night’s sleep,” was the old insomnia
champion’s mournful comment. “But, I just can’t, that’s all. Doctors
say it has something to do with my nerves.”
There were people in Orleans who took Bill-Ike’s sleepless story with
a pinch of salt. But Bill-Ike got the publicity just the same, and the
New York excursion and ballyhoo didn’t change him a bit. And, at the
peak of the newspaper excitement, another oldster of the community
bobbed up with a new and original claim. He slept, all right, but his
eyelids never seemed to come down. All of his sleeping was done with
eyes wide open. He just lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, all
night long.