My Name is Barb and I am a Whistler

"Barbara, quit whistling!", my mom would yell, exasperated at my serenading her in the kitchen. That was the best place in the world to whistle, it was so LOUD! Of course, I would continue to whistle until she yelled three times, then I would acquiesce to her demands.

I am not sure when I started whistling, it seems like I have been doing it all my life. That is the thing about whistling, it just happens. You don't really pay attention to it. It is like breathing.

There is a cafe in the building where I work and the woman who runs it is blind. She recognizes me by my whistle as I walk in the door, but the first time I visited her cafe she thought I was a man. I never thought about whistling and gender before. I told her no I am not a man, and yes, I love to whistle. She smiled.

Then there was that day I walked out of the bathroom, whistling of course. Large bathrooms are even better than mom's kitchen. "Oh, so YOU'RE the whistler," said a woman on her way in. Busted. No privacy for me in the stall, I thought.

Many people have told me how much they love to hear me whistle, how it reminds them of someone long gone. I guess it is a dying art. I usually only see old men in bib overalls whistling in the Farm and Fleet Store. Maybe farmers are just happier people.

Why do we whistle anyway? Is it to attract a mate? Hasn't worked for me yet. Is it a physiological expression of happiness much like tears are of sorrow? I would agree with that. Whistling makes me happy. And when I am happy I whistle. A positive feedback loop.


Perhaps it is an evolutionary link to the days when we were once bird-like. Oh wait, we crawled out of the primordial ooze as reptiles. But birds originated as reptiles, right? Hmm. Facinating.

I was standing in line at the grocery store one day when the person behind me started whistling. I was startled to hear a fellow whistler, and turned around only to see it was a woman whistling! I said to her, "Hey! Another whistler like me!" We talked about our love of whistling and found we were both unable to control the little tunes that pop out of our pursed lips.

The only other female whistler I ever saw was at a nursing home in Indiana. The entertainment of the day was a woman who whistled to cassette recordings of tunes from yesteryear. She would stand there holding her microphone and whistle away to the captive audience. Interesting. Never thought of doing that.

One place I worked had a very unhappy secretary whom nobody liked. Many times a day I would have to walk through the office area to get to the copy machine. Sometimes I would whistle. Well, OK, probably lots of times I would whistle. One day she yelled at me. "Will you please not whistle in this office?", she said, not very nicely. I guess whistling was too happy for her grumpy demeanor. It was carpeted for gosh sakes, not like a bathroom or a kitchen!

If you are a woman, like to whistle, and believe in superstition, don't read Wikipedia's entry on whistling. You will find out that in the Philippines it is improper for women to whistle in public. The US Navy has a saying that only homosexuals whistle. In old England, the saying was "a whistling woman never marries". Oh god, why didn't anyone tell me these things when I was but a child?

Someday I hope to attend the International Whistler's Convention in South Carolina. Check out the site, there are some videos of award winning whistlers. I listened to a few of them, and I must say I think I could hold my own pretty well if I practiced up a bit. Now a word of caution, if you have never seen a whistler perform, it does look a bit strange, but you get used to it.

Well I say, if Snow White says it, it is good enough for me. Give a little whistle.

Yearning for Christmas

A couple weeks ago I stopped in the pharmacy and noticed the Christmas merchandise was starting to fill the shelves. Have you noticed that this red and green stuff appears earlier every year? First it was just around Thanksgiving. Then it crept to Halloween. I bet next year they'll jump right to the Fourth of July, although I hope they keep the holiday aisles separated by some distance, I just dread the thought of red, white, and blue juxtaposed with the reds and greens of Christmas.

There is a huge part of me that loves Christmas, that is to say the one I remember from my childhood. Christmas began with the long trip from our house in central Ohio to my Grandparents' home in northern Indiana. I knew we were getting close when we crossed the bridge over the Maumee River in Toledo. My Grandparents' cinder block house was built into the side of a hill, and the driveway wound around to the backside of the house. It was surrounded by snowy woods full of hickory and sassafras trees. The lower level, which was entered from the rear, had a finished basement, tool room, and bathroom on the north side and a two car garage on the south side. A carpeted stairway went up the middle.

In the basement was a kitchen, a beautiful field stone fireplace built by my Grandpa, and Grandma's working 1920's player piano, which gratefully now lives with me. Grandma kept Christmas lights strung around the ceiling all year long. This basement was the place of singing and card games and sitting in front of a fire. It was a magical place.

But back to the story. We would all pile out of the car, bags and packages in hand and enter our family home. There, at the top of the stairs, the wooden door would open and Grandma and Grandpa would be waiting with open arms and hugs and kisses. And just behind them, one of the most wonderous things I have ever laid eyes on. The Christmas tree. Their tree was always flocked to create the illusion of snow covered branches, which were then covered with beautiful old-fashioned glass ornaments. And tinsel. Lots of tinsel, which was made of lead! My eyes would immediately dart to that space under the tree, which was usually overflowing with packages. My sisters and I would race to the brightly wrapped boxes, scanning each and every tag for our names. There's one! There's another! Oh the anticipation was overwhelming. What was in the boxes?

Frankenmuth has nothing on Grandma. She loved Christmas and her house transformed into another world. Santas of all sizes appeared in every room, little reindeers and elves, garland and candy dishes. Large plastic candles on the porch. Green and red placemats and runners covered tables and counter tops. Angels took over the bathroom with a herd of reindeer. Wreaths were hung on the walls and door. You couldn't help but catch the fever of the holiday.

The night before Christmas was spent with trying to sleep on the pull-out davenport in their study. The three of us girls would all sleep in that bed, with the door closed. Directly in our line of sight, if the door was open, was the Christmas tree. Can you imagine having to lie in bed for hours staring at a door that blocked your view of the most incredible sight a child could ever see!

But soon, eyes grew weary and before I knew it, morning came. It was still dark of course, but that didn't stop me. I jumped out of the bed, flung the door open and stared wide-eyed at the tree, its colored lights glinting off thin strands of tinsel. The whole tree seemed to glow! And then the realization hit me, Santa had come! I would shout to my sisters "Get up! Get up! Santa came!", and then run to my sleeping parents and grandparents, imploring them to get out of bed and come open presents. The whole thing was just magical, plain and simple.

Those memories are imprinted in my brain. That is what Christmas is to me. And the hell of it is we grow up. Life happens. Parents divorce. Grandparents die. Family moves away. Houses are sold.

But Christmas still comes.

It is a constant reminder of a simpler time. A time of childhood, when magic and wonder ruled. A time when many Elders were still with us, including my Great Grandparents. A time before divorce. This is how my child mind remembers it.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Sometimes I think it is a disservice, a set up if you will, the whole Santa Claus thing. It trains us as kids, imprints on our brains, a very pleasurable tradition that will blow up in our face as soon as we reach the age when we no longer believe in Santa Claus. It is all a trick.

My problem is I still believe.

So is it any wonder Christmas is depressing and confusing? I am still waiting for Santa Claus to come, with Rudolph leading his team of eight flying reindeer. I still yearn to go home to that magical Christmas tree and two loving Grandparents.

How could anything else ever compair?