Whistling Memories

Before cell phones and the internet, everyone played outside after school and all day during the summer. We’d wander around the little wooded area down the street, or play a sport in the street (softball or football usually) or ride our bikes around the area. It was glorious. The only problem was: when was it time to go home? 

One family, the Kibbys, had a light on their porch that we could all see and when it was turned on, they had to go home. My dad would whistle. That’s right, whistle. He could whistle really loud and not one of those stick your fingers in your mouth and make a piercing noise whistle. Nope. His whistle was melodic and unmistakable.  If we were playing within a two to three block area, we could hear the whistle or someone we were playing with would hear it. Normally that was the call for dinner, but sometimes it was also the “Hey, you’re out too late and I don’t know what the hell is wrong with the Kibby’s porch light but it’s time to come home!” whistle. It was truly a sound of summer.

Another sound of summer, though not relegated to the summer, was my dad farting. You may be appalled, but it wasn’t uncommon to hear farting around my dad. He honestly couldn’t care less and often thought it hysterical. One vivid memory I have of him farting is when we were fishing up on Beaver Island. Now, we’d go “fishing” on one of the lakes, but it was mostly just time for my dad to relax and do a whole bunch of nothing in the nice calm, serene environment. 

We didn’t get up early to catch the early fish feeding or stay until dusk to get them hitting at the end of the day. Nope, we’d securely lock in the late morning to early afternoon, sun directly over-head time slot.  The old 5 h.p. Evenrude motor would get filled up and we’d have the reserve tank as well all lined up. To add insult to the fishing injury however, he would often put an impossibly large lure on my hook, essentially ensuring that I wouldn’t even get a nibble. One year it bit him in the ass though as I caught a 19” Pike that he then had to clean so we could eat. But clean it he did, as with other fish of size that we caught over the years. He definitely had those basic “dad skills” down pat.