How long has it been since you heard a whistle? I don’t mean the shrill sound of blowing through a whistle, I mean where someone purses their lips and whistles. Used to be, whistling was common. In fact, if I remember correctly, there was a song or two that had whistling in it. So, what happened? Why don’t we whistle a tune any more?
When I was a teen, boys would sometimes whistle at a girl. They don’t any more. Good night! That’s called sexist. Funny thing that we didn’t know that way back then, but there seems to be a lot we didn’t know back then.
Whistling was part of my younger years. Dad didn’t whistle much, but Mom did. She didn’t believe the adage, Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to no good end. Girls can whistle quite as well as boys.
My grandpa used to whistle as he went to the barn to milk his cows each morning. Before sunrise, with a hard day’s work ahead of him, he whistled. It was usually a Stephen Foster song, The Glendy Burk. It was a cheerful sound in the darkness of morning.
Do you remember the film, The Man Who Knew Too Much? Whistling was quite important in that movie. If you haven’t seen it, try to find it. It starred Doris Day and James Stewart.
There could be lots of reasons why people don’t whistle any more. I wonder what would happen if I whistled while taking a daily walk? Would people come and stare? Would a pack of dogs follow? Would a police cruiser pull up beside me and run me in for disturbing the peace?
Could it be that technology has replaced whistling? After all, how can you whistle when your eyes are glued to a small, flickering screen?
Remember the Disney film, The Seven Dwarfs? Remember Whistle While You Work?
I advocate getting back to those old, simple ways of brightening the day. Whistling is a happy sound and we need lots of that. Try it; purse your lips and blow. You just might like it.
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