There is something strange, isn't there, about a man of mature years trying to learn to whistle! Not the puckered-lips whistle, although I did suggest more than playfully to a prosthetist making an upper dental plate that he include a gap between the front teeth.
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I mean the whistle that stops the world within several hundred metres for half a minute, the whistle that streams as clear and clean as sound can be from between fingers thrust into the mouth. Some people use the index finger of both hands, or the index and middle fingers of both hands, or the index and middle finger of one hand, or the index finger and thumb of one hand, or the little finger of both hands, and I know because I've been watching closely for more than six decades.
You may be thinking wolf whistle, but that is a pallid urban version of the whistle I want. Mine is performed by country people, to get the attention of animals and people or simply to yahoo, and it has two parts, the first a falling high note of two or three seconds then a short higher whhhht.
When I heard my horsey sister-in-law whistle up a horse a couple of years ago I was thrilled to have such a whistler in the family. It's easy, she assured me, you just put your fingers in your mouth like so and blow. So if you see me with two fingers in my mouth you'll know what I'm doing. You won't hear anything.
The fact that whistling is the skill I've been trying to develop longer than any other has occurred to me as I've set about compiling a list of the skills I wish I'd developed or want to develop. There is time, I tell myself, but less time today than there was yesterday.
It may be that I've obsessed about not being able to whistle simply because I couldn't understand why I couldn't whistle, just as for quite a few years I'd bother my pretty little head about not being able to remember jokes, as it seemed everyone else could, despite what seemed to be a good memory. I've realised I don't like jokes anyway, and I don't think I ever did.
Sure, I am not without skills but they don't amount to much or as much as I'd like.
Remembering names was a similar problem until way too late in life, when I developed a trick so simple it's silly. When, for example, I meet someone called Dennis, I look for something he has in common with a Dennis I already know. It may be a squint or saying ay at the end of a sentence, and it works well if I don't know also a John who has a squint or says ay at the end of a sentence.
Public speaking may have been the most spectacular failure of all my aspirations. I tried, two or three times over a couple of decades with a couple of speaking clubs and with a good friend who was an accomplished speaker as my coach, but I went from bad to hopeless.
Two observations from those excruciating experiences have stayed with me, and I think about them from time to time.
One was that often an entertaining and lively speaker was notably dull and hesitant off the podium, and the other was that often the worst speakers, even more embarrassingly bad than me, were the most confident and the keenest to jump to their feet.
My attempts to paint with watercolour have been no more successful but unlike public speaking they linger still.
I've read dozens of stroke-by-stroke books, been to classes, and I know exactly what I want to produce, but still I wouldn't dare show the results to even my toddler grandsons.
Years ago when I told a noted watercolourist I'd watched paint a sketch with just a few strokes that I envied his skill, he said seriously that he would swap his painting skill for my writing skill. He couldn't put three sentences together, he told me, and I assured him it was not at all difficult. I pointed out the obvious, too, that I couldn't put three brush strokes together, and he told me it was not all difficult.
It interests me that both of us thought little of our particular skill, both of us believing that with a few basic principles and practice the skill of our livelihood is easily gained. And it is interesting also that both of us thought more highly of the skill we didn't have.
Practice is the measure of our resolve, I reckon. Take the fact that I am a comically unsuccessful fisherman. I am happy to be hopeless because I'd rather not put in the long fishless hours in testing weather to find out what works and what doesn't. And maybe if I did I'd still be hopeless.
I would much rather become proficient in a style of cooking or a particular cuisine, as in stir frying or Asian steamed dishes or Thai soups, and while I can produce a result now it is a laboured process that requires noisy interventions by my wife.
Sure, I am not without skills but they don't amount to much or as much as I'd like.
I am good at, for example, reading people, brewing beer, beekeeping and fixing small motors, and in keeping with the frailties of my personality I know a little bit about a lot of things and not much about anything.
One of my old bosses said to me as he retired years ago that he wished he'd become an expert at something, something outside his work. Anything, he said when I asked, birds for example.
I'm interested in birds, and I'll never be an expert on birds or anything else. The reason is application, the lack of. Pretty well every school report card of my high school years assessed Master Corbett as lacking application.
And maybe that's not a bad thing. I mean, for how long should I go round blowing through two fingers thrust into my mouth?
Jeff Corbett contributes regular opinion columns to the pages of the Newcastle Herald. Contact the writer: jeffcorb@gmail.com
