My friend Carol sent an email this morning. On the subject line, she had written, Sunday Coffee with Blanche. It would be nice if she and I could sit down for coffee this morning–it would be nice if you and I could too. So, let’s pretend.
This morning as I was checking through the news on my computer (I know, not a good way to start the day) some news story stirred a memory. Whistling! I never hear a man or a woman, a boy or a girl whistle a tune any more. Do you? I used to whistle a lot. Now, something has happened to my whistler and I have a pretty limited range. Dad didn’t whistle as much as Mom did. Dad sang a lot, but when I could hear my mother whistling an old song, all was right with my world.
My grandpa used to whistle as he went to the barn to milk his cows each morning. It would still be dark, he’d have a hard day’s work ahead of him, but he was glad and he whistled. It was usually a Stephen Foster song, The Glendy Burk.
Do you remember the film, The Man Who Knew Too Much? Whistling was quite important in that movie. Seems to me there was once an old radio show called The Whistler.
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 I be thought of as the neighborhood-barmy-old-gray-haired-mystery-write-who-whistles?Would a police cruiser pull up beside me and run me in for disturbing the peace?
One reason people don’t whistle is that they usually go about with ear phones plugged in, or drive from here to there in cars. We had one radio when I was a child. It stayed in place on the table plugged into an outlet. When we left the house, we were on our own as far as music went.
Remember the Disney film, The Seven Dwarfs? Remember Whistle While You Work?
I advocate getting back to whistling. It’s great for thinking, for cheering up a mood, for just brightening the day. Remember the song, I Love to Whistle?
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