Loren told a funny tale about crutches as whistle stock.
Mack,
You crack me up! Good to see (hear) you in good spirits. Here’s a funny story I bet you can relate to:
Last week I was cleaning out a closet and stumbled across 2 pair of old crutches - one for each knee surgery I’ve had. As I walked down to the dumpster to chuck them (the foam padding was disintegrating and the important plastic parts were all cracked and falling apart - not really in a donateable state), I thought: “Wait a minute, these are made from aluminum tubing…” Needless to say, I didn’t chuck them - there’s whistles in there somewhere
Best wishes for a continued speedy recovery,
Loren
The following is a true story. The names and places have not been changed:
Barbie was a freshman student in Aspen High School where I taught a year. She was a hot skier, but her parents were unable to get her into a program in Aspen so they moved to Steamboat Springs. Before she even got a good start she wrecked her knee, so we took her in, because her orthopedic surgeon was in Aspen.
She hobbled around on metal crutches. One day I had her crutch apart playing it like a flute while she laughingly disapproved from the couch. The intonation was pretty bad, but it did have fair embouchure. And quite fun, too, till she had to go to the bathroom.
We haven’t kept in touch, but she did go on to become an orthopedic surgeon herself.
I have moved on to ski poles for whistles.
–Mack Hoover 9/03/2002
[ This Message was edited by: Mack.Hoover on 2002-09-03 21:43 ]
Such a small world as I used to live in Aspen too, and up the road in Snowmass. When were you there?
I was hanging around in the late 70’s and early 80’s as a ski bum during the winter (Worked at Sam’s Knob on Snowmass) and then spent the summers training at the Aspen Academy of Martial Arts, which was held on the side of Snowmass Mountain.
Best part about the summers in Snowmass was all the cute girls that would be in town for that Dance Camp…
Geeze Mack, you’re making me homesick for Colorado again (sniff)…
Loren
P.S. Did you ever meet Eagle Butler or Amy Hunter? Eagle was an Aspen Local for what seemed like forever. Even took me to one of Bucky Fuller’s birthday parties, what a trip!
I taught in Aspen High School 69,70, moved to Carbondale in 73 and did carpentry for 23 years driving killer 82 daily, and moved to my present location in Clifton in 96, and retired in 00. We looked for a place where they didn’t know what a snow shovel is.
I didn’t know Amy Hunter but I worked for Pat Hunter for a while. We built Senator Gravell from Alaska a home in Snowmass. We shared our shop–the garage (carpeted for the occasion)) with the Secret Service as command center when Prime Minister Trudeau came to visit the Senator for a ski vacation.
Did I mention that I don’t miss Aspen?
Well, maybe a little.
Mack, I can donate my erstwhile companions ‘Bert and Ernie’ – totally tubular crutches that have been in seven sessions, four in Ireland!, for your experimentation.
Also, I’m looking for a whistlesmith who wants to try to work in titanium (seriously). Any takers?
Send me your poor, your wornout, your humble skipoles yearning to be free!
Or lift your shining crutch so I can see
If perhaps someday it may a whistle be.
Oh, what a land of opportunity this C&F community!
Sorry, I got carried away.
Aaron I have a walking stick whistle attained from my neighbor’s bamboo plant(which isn’t supposed to grow in Colorado. At least that’s what I thought till I saw it with my own eyes and started making whistles from it). It kinda sounds like one of the native American flutes, and really sounds great resonating in the canyons I like to hike in.
Tygress, I’ll take them with no promises as to when they might be converted. I’d try titanium, too! Do you have some?
Have you heard from ColoIceClimber, yet?
Aaron I have a walking stick whistle attained from my neighbor’s bamboo plant(which isn’t supposed to grow in Colorado. At least that’s what I thought till I saw it with my own eyes and started making whistles from it).
Yeah! I was pretty surprised when I moved back to Oklahoma from the Philippines several years ago, and found that bamboo was growing in my yard here, too. At the Tulsa Zoo there is an island full of it. It must be pretty hardy stuff, considering the kind of severe weather changes we have.
I used to live near Colorado when I was about two-years old (vague memories), we lived in Boise City, Oklahoma. We used to drive up through Colorado to come visit family in Eastern Oklahoma. Well, I didn’t drive, my father did.
On 2002-09-04 11:53, Walden wrote:
Yeah! I was pretty surprised when I moved back to Oklahoma from the Philippines several years ago, and found that bamboo was growing in my yard here, too. At the Tulsa Zoo there is an island full of it. It must be pretty hardy stuff, considering the kind of severe weather changes we have.
Actually, there are about a million varieties of bamboo and you can find one variety or another in almost every climate except maybe high alpine or tundra. One of the great opportunities for retiring hippies in almost any climate is bamboo farming of species adapted to their area. If you get one of the “running” varieties it can take over a yard faster than kudzu!
Now THAT was a good idea. I removed the inner lining of my moon boot, with its velcro closure down the front, took two velcro straps (2-3 inches wide) and secured one around the leg of the boot and one holding the folded toe up along the leg. It holds all my whistles in their various sleeves securely, fits into my shoulderbag neatly (I used to have the whistles loose in there!) and allows for the stashing of other small bags of paraphernalia, including our new minidisc recorder (Merry Hannukahh and Happy Christmas to us both!) This is a very good thing.
Not that anyone should break a leg in order to get one, but if you see one in a tag sale, you might think about it!
Planted a shoot in my yard, Do I qualify as a hippy?
Let's see, if I remember right you live in Colorado, too. Yep, you must be a hippy .
I remember growing up in Colorado in the sixties and early seventies my mom was always complaining about the hippies leaving California and invading the mountains of rural Colorado. Of course, she conveniently forgot that we'd moved there from California and that my older sister was still living in a commune there...
I guess I'm just a redneck hippy myself.
Speaking of redneck hippies - you may be a redneck hippie if you use your Chevy pickup to tow your VW bus when it breaks down...
Please send no more crutches or moon boots or ski poles or ski boots or bamboo shoots or 1943 steel pennies!! Though I would take a 1909 indianhead.
If I don’t start focusing on making standard whistles, “October Opening” will be “Red October”.
