Give a Little Whistle

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow." -- Lauren Bacall in "To Have and Have Not" on the Dummy's Guide to Whistling.

We began thinking about whistling after finding people giving us bemused stares for whistling in elevators and on public transit. Apparently, this is not done. One can carry on loud conversations on portable phones, including declarations of love and details of medical conditions, but whistling is not de rigueur.

Still, the word "whistle" turns up in many ways--trains go through whistle stops, whistle blowers reveal bad behaviour, we go whistling in the dark, and we whistle up a snack.

Remember "The Whistler" on radio, when people listened to radio in the evening? The movie "Whistle Down the Wind"? The popular Vancouver policeman Whistling Bernie Smith? There have even been albums of jazz whistling (try whistling Charlie Parker's "Koko.")

And how about Jiminy Cricket's instructions to Pinocchio when he needed the aid of his conscience?

"When you get in trouble, and you don't know right from wrong,

Give a little whistle! (tweet tweet) Give a little whistle! (tweet tweet)"

Stephen Sondheim assured us "Anyone Can Whistle." So off we go, whistling tunes no one else remembers--"Red Sails in the Sunset,""An Apple for the Teacher," "I Get the Neck of the Chicken." We just put our lips together and blow.