Good morning, all.
It’s been fun spending a bit of time on the board again lately; I’ve missed all of you. Well, most of you, anyway. 
Before I fade back into Chiffboard obscurity again, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Last night, my venerable Trusty Clarke D joined the great choir invisible.
It was my first and favorite whistle. I played it so much the first year that I wore the gold diamonds off it. Later, I decided to go all the way and polish all the black paint off, making it into a silver whistle with just the stamped Clarke logo in black. It was, with the possible exception of my snake-skin clad Hoover, my sharpest looking whistle, and it was by far my favorite for sound–chiffy but pure and in tune; responsive, easy with ornaments and octave jumps, loud enough for session work but never harsh or bad-mannered.
This was the whistle I took with me on a hundred backpacking trips, here in Wyoming and abroad. I took it to Scotland and played to celebrate topping Ben Nevis, to entertain the sheep at Culcreuch, and to egg on a dancer in a highland pub. It was with me for my first public whistle performance, and it served for the entire tenure of my folk band. I used to to sing along with mountain streams, to express my awe at the Olympic rain forest, to morn at the Viet Nam wall, and to utterly terrify my mom’s dog, Sam.
I know, I know, it’s just an inanimate piece of metal and wood. But it was a pretty darn special piece of metal and wood. Almost like a companion.
I planned on keeping this whistle forever. When the fipple plug rotted out of it, I was planning to replace it with metal or synthetic so the whistle would last at least as long as its owner. Alas, 'twas not to be.
I had left the whistle on my truck seat, as I always do, to make those long, straight, lonely stretches of Wyoming highway go by a bit faster. Sometime between Christmas shopping and house construction, it fell off the seat.
The whistle which had survived rockslides, waterfalls, hunting trips, and untold thousands of miles by air, truck, bike, and foot proved no match for my truck door. A rather odd crunchy metalic ping; a horrible sinking feeling in my gut, and that was it. The Trusty Clarke D was crushed in three places, including the fipple. There’s nothing for it but to throw it away and start the search for a new perfect whistle.
Sigh. I guess I’ll go practice my euphonium…
Tom
[ This Message was edited by: WyoBadger on 2002-12-09 14:10 ]