This Nostalgic Life is a free weekly publication rich with nostalgia brought to you by co-creators Eric Vardeman and Mick Lee. If this is your first time reading, you can subscribe using the button below so you don’t miss receiving any future issues delivered straight to your inbox.
Welcome to the latest issue of This Nostalgic Life where the usual suspects, Eric and Mick, are telling tales of childhood sleepovers. Grab your sleeping back and fix yourself a s’more as you read along with this week’s tales!
The Case of The Haunted Picture
by Eric Vardeman
The year is 1979, I’m nine years old and my friend, Charlie, is having a sleepover for his birthday. Charlie lived with dad and his younger brother in an older, rather large two story house (it was actually three stories if you count the basement). Looking back now as an adult, it was away more space than the three of them needed. I have no idea where Charlie’s mom was. I never asked and he never told.
When I arrived at Charlie’s, the first thing I remember noticing is a huge, unfriendly picture of a Spanish Conquistador hanging in the living room. It was more than a little creepy. It’s an image that has been burned into my brain for over forty years because of this party. On a whim, I did a Google search to see if there was any shot at all of finding that creepy image. Turns out, it was a fairly popular painting at the time. Who knew.
There were six of us, counting Charlie, at the party that night and we were having the time of our lives. His house sat next to a cement mixing plant and, while we were outside causing nine year old boy mischief that evening, we decided to level up and go climb on the mixing equipment and play in the two huge piles of sand they had. Either Charlie’s dad had no clue we were over there or wasn’t really concerned we were over there. In the end, nobody got hurt but my Lord. Not the best choice.
Charlies house was super cool. It was just the right amount of weird and creepy to go along with how large it was. His dad basically gave us the run of the place. He and Charlie’s little brother holed up in master bedroom while we acted like savages. Some of the weird features that the house had: a dumbwaiter that went from just outside Charlie’s bedroom on the second floor to the basement where the laundry room was…and yes we rode in it. There was also a small access passage that went from the basement up into the garage. It wasn’t a the size of a regular hall or staircase and, to this day, I cannot figure out what that was for. Charlie called it the “secret passage”, though, and we were all suitably impressed.
Charlie’s dad bought out half of the grocery store so we also spent the evening eating our weight in junk food. At one point late in the evening, while we were in the basement goofing off, two of the other boys came back down thoroughly freaked out. They had been in the kitchen getting food and had to walk through the living room to get back to the basement stairs. I’ll never forget what they said when the came running back down into the basement:
“The picture was watching us.”
And that’s all it took to freak a group of nine year old boys out. We spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out why it was watching us, scaring each other and ourselves, hearing weird noises inside and outside the house. We were convinced that the house and the picture were haunted. Finally, we made the executive decision to take the picture down off the wall because it was freaking us out so much. After that, we all felt better and went back about our nine year old business. Not long after that, though, another trip to the kitchen was needed because we were running low on supplies. The boys never made it to the kitchen, though. They came back screaming:
“THE PICTURE IS BACK ON THE WALL.”
As a group, we summoned the courage to go check and, just as they said, the picture was, in fact, back in it’s rightful place on the wall. That was it. We were all ready to die. The picture was going to come for us and kill us. None of us left basement again that night. We used the dumbwaiter to get our stuff from Charlie’s room and we all slept in the basement and survived till daybreak.
Again, looking back as an adult, I’m certain Charlie’s dad was having a grand ole time scaring us. He did a damn good job.
The Birthday Sleepover
by Mick Lee
I’m sure all of you reading this got to enjoy sleepovers like I did. They were always looked forward to events when we were growing up. Getting a chance to go to a friend’s house to spend the night enjoying junk food and movies, and staying up as late as possible, was a treat at that age.
And while I had my first experience with a Nintendo at a sleepover, I’m going to focus on another one for this issue.
I can’t remember the exact year, but it was either 1985 or 1986. My friend from school, Lance, was have a sleepover for his birthday. Several friends were invited and I was excited as this was my first sleepover that featured more than just one kid staying.
I was the first one to arrive, and he immediately invited me into the den downstairs. As I walked in, he was showing off what was playing on his television, and beamed with pride as he announced it was Return of the Jedi on video tape. He was a little disappointed that I wasn’t a fan of Star Wars and really had no interest in seeing it.
But before long the other kids arrived and so did the pizza, and the birthday party sleepover kicked off. I remember having such a good time laughing and playing with my friends, and for the main event, we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark that his Mom had rented for the occasion.
After that, he pulled out Risk for us to play. I had never seen or heard of it before, but I loved board games so I was in. It took a while to learn, and the game went on for hours. It went on so long that we all dropped off to sleep one by one and had to continue it the next morning.
The problem with most sleepovers that I went on was my Mom. She always had this thing about the hosts’ Mom would want the kids out of her hair early so she could get on with her day, so she always insisted on picking me up early. This probably stemmed from her desire to have my friends picked up early whenever I was hosting the sleepover.
Anyway, she came and got me early that morning so I didn’t get to finish the game, nor did I get to partake in the Saturday morning cartoon viewing with my sleepy-eyed friends. But besides that, my first multi-friend sleepover was a blast.
I’d have several more like that in the future, but those are tales for another time.
Thank you for joining us for this issue. If you have your own story to tell, we’d love for you to leave us a comment and share it with us. Until next time, beware of the haunted pictures in your house!
