I found a box of memories the other day.

My wife had me searching for things I never use to give to charity. I piled shoes, coats and shirts into a container.

It was like cleaning an attic. I spent more time recollecting than cleaning.

I opened a shoebox and found a tiny pin that carried a number that was indicative of many years of perfect Sunday School attendance. It had been awarded with much ceremony.

Every Sunday morning before church, I went to Sunday School. My Sunday School teachers were wonderful and we students were attentive and thoughtful — usually. Most of my Sunday School classmates were also my classmates at the public school, but several were from schools located in exotic places up to 14 miles away like Freeborn and Ellendale.

We learned a lot in Sunday School. We read the Bible and memorized verses — the short ones, like “Jesus wept.”

We were well-behaved. We had a PK (preacher’s kid) in our class who would report to her father any missteps made by a fellow student. That would earn us the dreaded look in church and even though we sat in the pew of silence, we would get the feeling that we were the subject of the sermon. However, there were Sundays when the beginning of school wasn’t long past before we began to look forward to the ending.

Those were the Sundays when we giggled. The giggling was typically brought on by an unintentional sound made by the body of someone prone to blushing. To us, strange sounds were the epitome of humor. Growling stomachs were worthy of a fit of giggling. A fly landing on someone’s head was the height of hilarity. Catching a fly was funnier than a Three Stooges film festival.

Flu is contagious. People get flu shots. Giggling is contagious, but there are no shots available.

Our teacher told us to be quiet. Our instructor hoped aloud that one day we would be Sunday School teachers and have a class just like us. We knew that any threat from our teacher was an idle one, and each time we were told to be quiet, it caused us to giggle even more.

One minute, we were angelic Sunday school children. The next, we were giggling demons.

We lost our manners.

We were told to show a little upbringing.

We couldn’t have stopped giggling if we had wanted to. Psalms says, “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Uncontrollable giggling was our new song.

My mother described such giggling insanity as “finding a tee-hee’s nest with a ha-ha’s egg in it.” We giggled like a ticklish man at a feather convention.

It feels good to giggle. Giggling is like a good sneeze. If God hadn’t created giggling, a Sunday School class would have been forced to invent it.

“Stop that!” said our exasperated teacher in a raised voice, likely worried that a job performance review could be suffering. It’s impossible to stop giggling when told to. We were sure that suppressed giggling cut off oxygen to the brain.

We may have tried to stop giggling. We may not have attempted to end our giggling attack. It didn’t matter. We wouldn’t have been able to cease. Being unable to stop giggling is a burden unique to the pixilated.

We giggled as if we were raising money for a dread disease by holding a gigglethon.

Then she came in. She was our Sunday School superintendent. Agnes Christopherson, retired from the bank, was a wonderful person. Agnes loved the president, the Twins, Dennis the Menace and a well-behaved Sunday school class. We all liked her and she wasn’t opposed to giggling, but she did not approve of giggling in Sunday School. She believed that “Thou shalt not giggle in church” was the 11th Commandment that was somehow left out of the Bible.

Agnes used a cane to facilitate walking. It was the size of a large oak tree. She slammed that cane down upon a desk. She thumped the cane to save us from eternal damnation.

Sunday School classes at the other church in town heard it. The sound was scarier than any amusement ride we’d been on at the county fair. There was no time to search for a loophole.

Agnes told us to be quiet. She wouldn’t have had to tell us. Agnes followed up on things. She told us to be quiet and then she made sure we were quiet. She held the cane in a ready position to be slammed down again.

From that point on, we checked our giggles at the door of the Sunday School classroom.

Until the day Tom pretended to eat a fly.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Sunday and Wednesday.