LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — The art of whistling has recently been a subject on the Clog (short for closed blog) which is an Internet forum consisting of yours truly and four close friends mutually bent on applying our collective genius toward the solution of all major world problems.  

We do, from time to time, allow special guests into the discussion when we need particular expertise on a given subject such as proper bodice ripping, harmonica tuning, dismantling anvils, etc., etc.  

Anyway, it is not unusual, in the course of high brow dialogue, for the clog to discover some peculiar trait or bit of wisdom about one of the regular members that leaves the rest of us somewhat astounded.

Such was the case upon discovering that one us and his father had once entered the North Carolina state champion whistling competition.

 I’m not sure how the team fared in the whistle-off but the simple fact they took whistling so seriously and were talented enough to enter a major competition was news far more interesting to me than the cause and effect of Greece’s collapsing economy or suicide of the Republican Party. Neither of the latter events give me personal cause for alarm.  

But the subject of whistling fathers awakened fond memories of my own Dad and even my Mom.

Mom was very shy about whistling, singing or even humming if she thought anybody else was in earshot. But when she was alone in the kitchen preparing supper or on the back porch stringing beans, it was not unusual to hear her lowly whistling or humming an old Carter Family tune or a favorite hymn.    

Mom had a sweet, lovely singing voice and she often sang my younger brothers and me to sleep if we were the only members of her audience.  She rarely whistled a melody, but she could trill numerous birdsongs so convincingly that cardinals, wrens, robins, indigo buntings and bobwhite quail would fly into the fence row shrubbery or the tall fruit trees surrounding our home and literally talk to her.

Many times I have seen her convince bob whites to come within arm’s reach as they puzzled as to where her calls were coming from.  Mom delighted in this ruse, and her joyful laughter at the birds’ confusion was as enjoyable as any music I have ever heard.

Dad, on the other hand, couldn’t carry a tune in a coal bucket but he had a collection of snippets consisting up to 10 or 12 notes to which he gave voice when was happy at his work and that was pretty much all the time.  

“Ahh-haaa-ha-ha. Whoa –dee-o-dough,” he would sing,  Then he would loudly hum the melody before whistling it so loudly that he could be heard for more than 100 yards.  He would do this over and over several times and then switch off to a different variation on the same theme.

Then he might switch to some line of a real song.  “Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly, over yonder she stands,” he might sing before humming the line a couple of times and then whistling it until he had worn it out and started yet another snippet.

My brothers and I, and even Mom, would often break out laughing at him but not so much in a teasing way as to share in his joy at picking beans or hoeing corn or whatever other chore he found to be happy about.

I remember sitting with Mom on the back porch one time in the hot part of the day lacing half runners onto long strands of twine that would be draped on the clothesline to dry into shucky beans.

Dad was off somewhere on the farm performing some other chore but all of a sudden we heard him loudly whistle one of his meaningless, unique snippets and it sounded like he was very close by, even though he was supposed to be working in a field way out of hearing distance.  

A minute or so went by and he whistled again.  We looked inside the house and round the corners of the porch but there was no sign of Dad.  We were convinced he was pulling a trick on us but then a mockingbird flew onto the lower limb of the pear tree right beside us and mimicked Dad to absolute perfection.  

After we finished laughing, Mom finally gasped, “At least that bird believes your Dad can sing!”

 

ikeadams@aol.com