WHISTLE POWER<\/p>\n
Whistle and dance the shimmy
\nYou will find your audience.
\nAnonymous<\/p>\n
Robert Smith has been arrested several times for whistling on the streets of Portland Oregon. Residents said he was disturbing their peace.\u00a0 The court listened to shop owners, pedestrians and outraged mothers\u2019 complaints and last February, decided that Smith was free to whistle as long as he didn\u2019t stand still.\u00a0 Now, Robert Smith walks throughout downtown Portland, whistling a penetrating, tuneless melody so loud you can hear him blocks away.\u00a0\u00a0 “I get more self-worth out of whistling. I do it every day — weather permitting,” he said. “I’m not out here to be the best whistler in the world. I’m just trying to make people smile.”<\/p>\n
I think that is a lovely attitude, one that all of us should think about adopting.\u00a0 Whistling is a delightful way to spread joy, catch someone\u2019s attention and call the dog.\u00a0 My sister could whistle before she could say a sentence.\u00a0 She, like Robert Smith, used to love to whistle while she walked.\u00a0 The difference is that my sister was a fat, adorable three year old who toddled happily in the neighborhood; Smith is a grown man; a construction worker, who should have better things to do with his time.<\/p>\n
However, the end results for both of them are the same.\u00a0 When neighbors saw my sister wandering through Birkhead Place, they would call my mother and say, \u201dIda, your kid ran away again.\u201d<\/p>\n
That served to alert my mother and give my sister the attention she wanted. She too had no intentions of being the best whistler in Toledo, Ohio.\u00a0 She wanted her mother.\u00a0 My sister\u2019s whistling often took her out of our gated community and into the main thoroughfare.<\/p>\n
One summer day, in 1944, my sister wandered out of the house whistling and attracted a mangy dog who fell madly in love with her unique melody.\u00a0 The dog followed her down the street, past manicured lawns and budding maple trees, across busy intersections and crowded parking lots until at last, a policeman noticed the tiny, dimpled whistler followed by a large, flea infested hound.<\/p>\n
He stopped my sister and said, as kind policemen did in the days before they carried guns and a chip on their shoulder, \u201dDarling where are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n
My sister, who had not mastered speech as well as she had her tuneful art, said, \u201dDog!\u201d and she smiled at the policeman expecting him to tell her she was a brilliant child because she said a complete word.\u00a0 At this very moment, my mother dashed into the street her apron strings flying behind her yelling, \u201dMarsha Dee!!! STOP!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
The policeman stopped.\u00a0 Pedestrians stopped \u00a0\u00a0My sister kept walking and whistling her way past the drugstore toward the bakery.\u00a0 She pointed to the dog.\u00a0 \u201cWe hunnry.\u201d she announced.<\/p>\n
The policeman went into the bakery, bought a bag of cookies: He gave one to my sister and one to the dog.\u00a0 \u201cSay thank you,\u201d my mother said to my sister.\u00a0 The dog barked, my mother popped a tranquilizer and the policeman continued his beat.<\/p>\n
The moral of this story is: There was a time when a whistle got you a cookie, but now-a-days, all you get is a citation.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WHISTLE POWER Whistle and dance the shimmy You will find your audience. Anonymous Robert Smith has been arrested several times for whistling on the streets of Portland Oregon. Residents said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"