From the Files of Mike Mailway In Trenton, N.J., doctors monitored a handyman named Al Herrin for several months, and confirmed his claim that he didn't sleep. If he could go without it for that long, they said, maybe he could go without it for a lifetime. He took catnaps in chairs, but he swore he never lay down. When he died at age 92 in 1947, survivors found no bed in his hut.