{"id":879,"date":"2016-06-11T17:04:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T00:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.majorscorner.com\/?p=879"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T03:12:50","slug":"the-majors-corner-giggler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"The Major&#8217;s Corner  Giggler"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"The Major's Corner  Giggler\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>There are many things in my life that I wish I could undo, particularly in my misspent youth.<!--more--><br \/>\nAt the ripe old age of six I was madly in love with a Martha Pickle, whose family thought I was a splotch of the first order. This is a fair assessment of your dear Major at that age, as I was caught many times by her outraged father sitting down quietly but uninvited to their evening dinners. Did I think I would not be noticed seated between her brothers?<br \/>\nMr. Pickle became an expert at flinging me in an arc from his veranda at sunset. I had just wanted to catch Martha\u2019s attention with one of my winning smiles, instead of being the frightful hooligan who sat three rows over from her in class. It was a plan that struggled from the start and ended badly. Sorry, Martha.<br \/>\nAnother exploit that vaporized my early reputation was due to innate fear on my part. I had never had the strap as punishment at school but others told me there was no escape and eventually all suffered the leather demon. In my case it was for the giggles.<br \/>\nWe Smythe-Browns down through the ages have been \u201cfor the high jump\u201d more than once because we could not avoid making little noises at inappropriate times. One of my distant uncles, Humboldt Smythe-Brown, was at court during the reign of Bloody Mary when she showed her courtiers a painting of herself which bore no resemblance to the female monarch \u2014 it was of a beautiful woman. Humboldt tried not to giggle but it was too much, and so was burned at Oxford the day after the bishops Latimer and Ridley, still giggling.<br \/>\nIn my case it was because of seeing a large teacher at Crescent School sliding on a dollop of porridge and tittering at his dilemma. He had hurt his leg quite painfully and was in no mood to see a jammy-faced lower-school boy amused by it.<br \/>\nHe limped into his study with me in his grip and told me to hold out my hand. I presented my shaking appendage as he raised the dreaded instrument high above his head and then with great force brought it down. Meanwhile my hand had decided that this was nonsense and removed itself from the field of battle, with the result that there was nothing for the hurtling strap to hit. It continued down, striking the teacher on his already inflamed thigh and catching part of his wedding tackle. The primal scream that filled the teachers\u2019 study that day only encouraged me to leg it for parts unknown. Sorry, Mr. Berry.<br \/>\nMy poor father had such hopes for me, which were dashed after he witnessed my performance at the same Crescent school\u2019s games day. I narrowly missed the guest speaker with a badly thrown javelin and I pulled up short in the 440 yard dash because I had forgotten to use the toilet earlier. My father despised forgetfulness and therefore found me much wanting in the \u201cson\u201d category. I tried to please him and looking back I think he was fond of me but did not see a bright future for me. I did not disappoint him. Sorry, Father.<br \/>\nWe all know the old saying \u201cBehind every successful husband stands an astonished wife.\u201d In my case I am not overly successful and yet my wife is still astonished. After a few gins she says it is because we are together after some 40 years and relatively content. I do not bother finishing her sentence \u201cas long as I do as I am told.\u201d I do love the old girl, for I am far better for marrying her. Thank you Kitty.<br \/>\nCopyright Christopher Dalton.<br \/>\nwww.majorscorner.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"The Major's Corner  Giggler\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>There are many things in my life that I wish I could undo, particularly in my misspent youth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}