Toppy Fleming and his mother sat a few rows up from where I was sitting with Gam at Signpost Church on many Sunday mornings. Sometimes Mrs Fleming’s hearing aid would get to whistling, and I don’t think she cared because obviously she couldn’t hear it, but the rest of us could. As hard as I tried not to- I got to giggling about it and I was trying so hard to stop which made it even worse. It wasn’t even that I’d made a sound but my whole body was shaking and it was making the pew shake. If any of you know how I get when I get tickled by something, then you’d know that I can hold my breath for a long time lost in a giggle and never hardly make a sound but I surely can’t control my body from the lurching. Gam was not happy with me, and her face said it too but I couldn’t help it. I tried putting my hand over my mouth but it was no use, all the while that hearing aid is still ringing! Well, Gam took a pinch of skin on the side of my leg and gave that a little twist. She never said a word, those pursed lips and that skin twist got my attention. She was not playing either, she wanted no foolishness during the sermon.

Speaking of Toppy Fleming’s mother, did any of you every hear the story that she was on the Titanic as a baby, but didn’t want anyone to know her age so she didn’t speak about it? Is that another of my dads tall tales or did any of you ever hear that too? My dad told me long ago that Gam & Pop lived at the Fleming house when they first got married. Its the first house on the right when you leave Signpost heading towards Greenbackville, and before you crossed that little bridge and got to Nancy Halls house and the Hollands on the other side.