Whistling

At dinner time or bedtime, our parents used to call us in from play by whistling a two-note descending phrase that meant, "All Johnson children come home now!" In pitch, it was a descending fourth.

 

I am essentially whistle-less, though that isn't quite true. I learned to whistle when I was ten and a half. I was walking from our house down to Riley Park to take part in some summer activity organized by the town to keep the school kids out of mischief.

 

I was wearing shorts and an ironed sleeveless shirt with a collar (this was well before the days of the ubiquitous t-shirt). The warm and humid air promised a scorcher later on, but it was still pleasant enough in mid-morning.

 

The whistling was a conscious undertaking. I couldn't whistle. Siblings, older and younger, could whistle, so it was clear that there was no genetic deformation of the tongue/teeth/jaw. That summer morning I was determined to learn to whistle.

 

I passed the Hannas' big house at the corner of Main and Monroe and then went along the little-used street that curved around the edge of the downtown, bordered on one side by the wooded hill that led down to Deer Creek.

 

W-w-w-w, I went. W-w-w-w-w-w. I moved my tongue. Re-pursed my lips. W-w-w-w. Nothing but air would come out.

 

In those days I was ever-hopeful, unaware of the possibility of failure, so I persisted. At a later age, I might have given up and resigned myself to being a non-whistler. But at ten and a half, I knew I could do it if I just kept trying, forcing the air out through those pursed lips, moving my tongue to new positions behind the teeth, closer to, then farther from the pursed lips, tongue curved, pointed, broadened—all possible configurations.

 

At the place where that little back street meets Washington Street, pedestrian steps lead down, down, to the bridge over Deer Creek. The steps are broad, maybe eight feet across, in two flights of six or eight steps each. The hand rail is a piece of two-inch iron pipe.

 

Just as I reached those steps, I made a whistling sound! From my pursed lips came a peeping piping tone that was a whistle. I was ecstatic. It was only a beginning, but I knew it would progress. I could become a fluent whistler, a professional purser of lips.

 

During the rest of the trip—across the bridge and along the path into the park, walking beside Deer Creek toward the big oval that was our combined track and football field--I practiced. I expanded on my piping sound until I had two, then three notes in my repertory. What an accomplishment! I had taught myself to whistle!

 

But no matter how hard I tried, that day and for months after, I never went beyond those three notes. Three feeble little notes, not loud enough to call a dog or express my appreciation for a concert. Barely worth the title of "whistling."

 

In compensation for my own deficiencies, I later married a man whose parlour trick was to whistle "American Patrol" with his best friend, in perfect harmony. Whistling skills are not the best criteria for choosing a spouse, so the marriage didn't last. Even today, I still can whistle only three feeble notes.

 

Copyright 2009 Ann Tudor   

www.anntudor.ca
http://scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com