Things We Have Lost

RHYS BOWEN:  My son-in-law whistles. You can always hear him coming because of his whistle. It’s quite tuneful and he whistles all sorts of different music from country to show tunes. John used to complain about it, so one Christmas son-in-law Tom made a CD called The Royal Family Whistles the Classics. The numbers ranged from “I’m Dreaming of a Different Son-In-Law” to “Son-In-Law is Coming Into Town.”  Highly amusing!  And the cover was a photo of the royal family with Tom photo shopped in.  He’s a great guy.

I was just thinking about this as we went through CDs the other day because whistling is something you don’t hear any more. My father was another man who whistled as he walked. You could always hear him coming up the path because of his whistle. It was always men, wasn’t it? You never heard a woman walking around whistling. Was it mainly a British thing? How many old books does one read in which the butcher’s boy comes up the path, whistling a merry tune? Does the Instacart person ever whistle a merry tune?  I don’t think so. So whistling is one of the things we have lost as a society. How many of you actually know how to whistle? I can still do it, but I don’t.

Another thing that has been lost is the art of conversation. Do you know that teenagers don’t call to chat on the phone any more? They text in abbreviated little non-sentences. U OK? And the reply is a sad-faced imoji.  My twin grandchildren have just been introduced to their college room mates. They have never actually spoken to them but have communicated in a series of texts.  Our own conversations are usually limited to emails.  How seldom do we sit down with a friend and a glass of wine and exchange views?  I was reminded of this because my brother in Australia Facetimed me yesterday and we spoke for an hour and a half. So satisfying!

So do you think the art of conversation may be lost forever? I always wished I could have been a member of the Algonquin Round Table and could join in the witty repartee that went on there. How often do we have witty repartee? The closest is right here, with the discussion among Jungle Reds. Even when we meet fellow writers I don’t think we often sit and discuss our craft in depth. More often it’s a whine about the flight and the airport, or about our publisher or a bad review.

I suppose this is tied to the other thing we have lost: time. In my grandmother’s day there were long evenings during which people had to amuse themselves because there was no TV or radio. They played the piano, recited poetry or just discussed things. They read. They had large vocabularies. You’d never have heard my grandmother using filler words like “like” or “you know.”  Now we are always in a rush.  And at the present I spend so much time in Zoom interviews that I really don’t want to talk much when they are over.

Another thing we have lost is civility. If you are only doing the speed limit cars swoop around, angry at being kept waiting. People let doors swing in your face. Steal parking spaces you are clearly waiting for. How rare to have someone who serves you with a greeting and a smile? When it happens I treasure it.  I try to keep up my own little civility. At a stop sign I will wave the other car ahead with a smile. Sometimes it generates a smile back.

So what do you do to create a kinder, gentler world? And can you whistle?

Hummingbirds.

RHYS: I have a confession to make. I hum. Quietly, to myself, a lot of the time. I didn’t realize I did it until my children pointed it out to me years ago. Now I’m conscious that I’m doing it. Sometimes it’s a tune I’ve heard recently that becomes an earworm, stuck in my head. Other times I have no idea what I’m humming or why. And the interesting thing is that when I stop and ask myself why I’m humming a particular tune, I’ve come to realize there is always a psychological connection or some kind of word association connection to something that has happened or been discussed.
I think it’s my way of stopping my brain from thinking about things too much. When I’m stressed, I hum. I have to stop myself from humming when I walk through airports, or I get strange looks. When I’m writing a book and my brain is hyper-creativity mode and I want to take a break I hum too. Because the thoughts don’t whirl around my head as much when I hum.

My father was a whistler. You'd always hear him coming by the whistle. My son-in-law ditto. John dislikes this so much that my son-in-law made a CD for him one Christmas called The Royal Family Whistles the Classics. The numbers were all whistled by Tom including "I'm Dreaming of a Different Son-in-Law, Son-in-Law is Coming into Town" etc. We still have it!

So, fellow Reds, do you hum, whistle, have a tune in your head that won’t go away? Have a default tune that hums around inside your skull when you are stressed. My current one is Puff the Magic Dragon. Don’t ask me why. I can’t analyze that one.

HANK: I just burst out laughing! I don't hum, but there is often a song in my head, and I agree, it comes from somewhere. And it's fun to figure out where. Puff, for instance. Anyone you know live by the sea? And it's autumn, right? Anyone bring you string, or sealing wax, or other fancy stuff.
And thanks a lot , sister, now that song is in my head. And I know exactly where it came from.
(Sidebar: I'm told that if you have a song in your head--called an "earworm," by the way--you can get rid of it by singling Jingle Bell Rock.) (And, they say, Jingle Bell Rock does not replace it.)
Worth a try.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, that is so funny! I don't hum, and I can't whistle (one of my many failings.) I do occasionally get a song stuck in my head, especially when Rick is learning something on the guitar and plays it over and over, lol. And, Hank, if Puff the Magic Dragon wasn't enough, you started me on a Joni Mitchell earworm (it was the sealing wax...) so now I'm going to try Jingle Bell Rock. Which I hate. If that sticks I will never forgive you.

LUCY BURDETTE: I am not trying the Jingle Bell thing--the cost could be too dear! I don't hum, but I do sing. Mostly to my animals. The song in my brain today goes like this: T-T-Tonka, beautiful Tonka. You're the only d-d-dog that I adore....

HALLIE EPHRON: I am not a hummer, mostly because I'm so off key I make myself cringe. When I sang my daughter a lullaby she'd ask me to stop. I do sing along with the radio, turning the radio up loud enough so I can't hear myself. And I get tunes stuck in my head all the time. Like the music that goes with the opening titles of NCIS? Aaaggggh.

JENN McKINLAY: Hummer, here! Hub and the Hooligans say I have my own top 40 countdown which includes Me & Bobby McGee, Someone Like You, Redbone, and Love Like a Bomb, just to name a few. I also sing and whistle and had no idea I was doing any of it until my men clued me in. Thankfully, they just ask me to turn it down instead of asking me to stop. LOL.

INGRID THOFT: I do not hum, and honestly, it drives me nuts if someone around me is humming.  Or whistling.  I'm like Debs in that I can't whistle.  It's part of the family lore that if you ask me to whistle a tune, one long, dissonant sound will come out of my mouth.  Interestingly enough, I actually have a decent singing voice and can carry a tune, but it doesn't translate to whistling.  My hubby is the worst when it comes to ear worms.  He'll often say, "you know what song I can't get out of my head?" and then proceed to sing a few lines, which lodge themselves in my brain.  The ear worm that reoccurs often?  "It's a Small World."  Ugh!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Ingrid, the penalty for lodging "It's a Small World" in someone's ear should be death. Swift death. I would drive you crazy, though, because I'm another hummingbird. The girls and I will often sit together of an evening: the Smithie reading, Youngest doing her homework, and me on my laptop. Humming. They ask me to stop, and I will...right up to the point where I lose awareness of "not humming" and begin again. I've caught myself humming while in an airplane, and I'm always embarrassed! What could be more obnoxious than being forced to listen to your seatmate humming the same three bars of Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 over...and over...and over again.

Actually, I know something more annoying: the Sailor, who's been a percussionist since age 11, beats. He jiggles his leg, taps his foot, thumps his fingers on the table. At least with unwanted humming, you have the option of putting in earbuds and listening to your own music to escape. With percussion, you FEEL it.

RHYS: Julia, I'm with you. "It's a Small World" is the most earworm-likely song in the universe. When we took the kids to Disneyland when they were small that pesky song wouldn't leave my head for weeks, nay months!  But I'm not sure I want to try Jingle Bell Rock either. That wouldn't exactly induce a calm state of mind!

So readers and friends: who hums? Who whistles? Who hates it when others do?