That Wacky Woodpecker

Drilling.  Drilling.  My consciousness was interrupted, usurped by the repetitive sound.  As if in slow motion, I came to recognize the softness of my sheets, the hum of the fan, and the trickle of morning light.  I was asleep, or at least I had been.  More drilling, only now I discerned a rhythm to the annoying sound:  duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta, duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.  It was a woodpecker, no doubt discovering a dried and aging sill on one of the dozens of windows in my house.  The windows are beautiful lenses with which to gaze upon the conservation land that surrounds our property, but their sashes and sills are easy marks for the relentless weather that bears down unprotected on the south face of our house.

Duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.  Duh-duh-duh-DAH-ta.

This was no ordinary woodpecker.  It was calling to me with a familiar refrain that I had heard my entire life.

As a child, I used to love Woody Woodpecker cartoons, the Walter Lantz classic featuring a mischievous “screwball” acorn woodpecker.  His battle cry, “Heh-heh-heh-HEH-ha,” was something I loved to imitate.  My father took to whistling this sound, a feat that took me much longer to learn to replicate.

The Woody Woodpecker battle cry, which I learned recently had been performed originally by the great Mel Blanc, was a signature of my family’s.  The whistle version is so deeply embedded in my past that I cannot honestly say where I first heard it.  Perhaps the cartoon was simply a case of art imitating life?  As long as I can remember, my father used it as his personal “come hither” for family members.

My earliest memory of this was at a vast discount store in North Miami Beach called Zayre.  Zayre, which apparently was named for a Yiddish word, was a large format department chain like Target, albeit without the attempts at color and style.  I remember it as a rather basic and dull warehouse filled with rows and rows of nondescript stuff.  When we entered the store, my family would scatter instantly.  Mom would head for housewares to the right while my father loved to comb the aisles to the left for motor oil, hardware, and fishing supplies.  My brother and I would head to different ends of the toy department across the back.  The dolls abutted “dad’s side” of the store, so I would normally end up walking around with him while he tried to explain to me the finer points of motor oil viscosity.

By the time my father finished evaluating the latest in epoxies he would be ready to leave, but my mother would be nowhere in sight.  She had apparently figured out what I had yet to learn—stay as far away from my father as possible when he was in shopping mode.  Rather than look for her or call her name, this is when he would whistle, sending his shrill cadence through the store.  In no time flat, my mother arrived with her cart of necessities, picking up my brother from the toys on the way.  Once united, we then headed for the checkout lines.

Over the years, this whistle—and the obedience it engendered—became engrained in our family karma.  It’s ability to rise above the din, whether at football games, baggage claim carousels, or crowded supermarkets, proved highly effective as a round-up mechanism.   I never really gave much thought to the fact that whistling was how you called a dog—it just was what it was.  Simple and expedient.

It was no surprise that when I was old enough to marry and have a family of my own, the whistle came with me.  I was a relative newlywed when I got separated from my husband in a large department store one day.  He is impossibly tall and hard to misplace, so it frustrated me when I could not find him.  As if by instinct, the whistle escaped from my lips:  woo-hoo-hoo-HOO-hoo!  It startled me to hear the familiar sounds come out of my mouth.  Oblivious, my husband finally surfaced.  On the way home, I told him about the whistle and we had a good laugh. 

But it did not stop there.  The next week we were at the supermarket.  While I bagged up a collection of fresh produce, my husband took off toward the carbonated beverages with the cart.  When I turned around and found no cart or husband, I once again emitted the involuntary whistle.  This time, however, both spouse and wagon came rolling down the aisle on cue.  “You paged?” he asked, mocking but with his usual good humor.

Over the last thirty years, our whistle has become the signature of our little family.  Not only do my husband and I use it as non-verbal communication (he will often whistle at the ladies’ room door as he exits the men’s room, letting me know he has moved on), it is also effective at summoning the attention of kids who have turned off their ears to the sounds of their parents’ voices.   In crowded venues like airports and stadiums, a distinctive whistle is easier to recognize than thousands of people calling “Mom!”   On occasion, my husband will endure a gentle ribbing for the way he heels obediently when I whistle (rest assured, it works both ways), but why use a shout when none will do?

As much as we have made that whistle a part of our family lore, I never forget that it was my father’s whistle first—a gift, perhaps, that keeps on giving.  Out of respect, it must be delivered in tune and on key exactly as he would have executed it.  And it must always be used with a playful sort of humor, even as it performs a vital function.

As that woodpecker works to find his prize in my weather-compromised trim, I thank him for the sweet memory.  Sometimes it is important to remember the source of things we take for granted.  I might have lived the rest of my life without remembering that wacky woodpecker that I once loved so much as a tiny child, or without remembering this one among a million wacky quirks that defined my colorful father.  Both are a welcome start to my day.