My boys, ages 3 and 8, both wanted to learn to whistle.
In retrospect, I think I would have had more luck teaching two Chihuahuas to play the French horn.
It all started about a week ago when my 8-year-old son materialized very late one night beside my Catnapper.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” I said, folding away my Time magazine.
“Daddy, can you teach me to whistle?” he said.
“How random is this?” I thought to myself.
Then, it hit me. Earlier that night, I had summoned him home from a Wiffle ball game down in the cul-de-sac by standing on our back deck and whistling.
I’ve been blessed with an uncommonly strong farmboy-style whistle. Not to brag, but when I whistled my son home, it startled a chorus of crickets into a moment of silence.
To his credit, my son had decided immediately that he wanted to learn this manly art. But before we could load the big gun – the four-finger, folded-tongue whistle – he needed to learn the gentle, melodic lip whistle (think “Andy Griffith Show” theme song).
“OK, buddy,” I said, “the first thing you do is pretend you’re kissing a girl. Just do like this.”
He puckered obediently.
“Now make a V with your tongue and blow softly through your lips,” I said.
He immediately began huffing and puffing, his cheeks bellowing as if he were trying to blow out a bunch of birthday candles.
“Now go back to bed and practice,” I said, returning to my magazine.
The next night, my younger son arrived beside my recliner.
“I can whistle, Daddy,” he announced.
“OK, little man, let’s hear it,” I said.
With that, he took a deep breath and executed a loud, juicy raspberry. A mist of his spittle coated my glasses.
“Nice,” I said, wiping my lenses dry with my T-shirt.
A few days later, I was determined to follow up on my older son’s whistle training. I Googled “teaching your child to whistle.” I found a website, eHow, with five easy steps.
Step No. 1 according to the website (honest): “Make your child stand in front of a mirror and say the word ‘poo’. Then tell him to remember the shape of his lips.”
Thus did my wife find us – her 52-year-old husband and her third-grade son – standing side-by-side and softly repeating the word “poo” while studying our puckered lips in a bathroom mirror.
“What the heck are you two doing?” she asked.
“Learning to whistle,” I said.
“Daddy, why are we doing this?” my son said.
“Why?” I said, startled. “Because you told me two nights ago you wanted to learn to whistle.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said.
“Were you sleep-walking?” I said.
“I must have been, because I don’t want to learn to whistle,” he said.
Sensing my disappointment, my 3-year-old son tried later to cheer me up later by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. (He recently started a new preschool where he gets a healthy blend of God and country.)
I was impressed until he got to the closing lines:
“… one nation, under God,” he said confidently. “indibizable, with liverty and zustace for all. Romans 3:23.”
D’oh!