Lefty Frizzell sang a song about Saginaw, Michigan. He sang about the fancy houses the lumber barons of yesteryear built on Mansion Row. We didn't live in that part of town. We lived on the west side. Our house was the only one on a block in a working class neighborhood that never really took off. There was only one tree.

The tree wasn't a stately oak or a majestic elm. It was a young box elder tree growing near the driveway out near the street. No one planted it there. It just grew. That was a set up for trouble.

My brothers and I, away from the farm, were bored stiff. No swamp. So, to amuse us Dad taught us how to make a whistle from a box elder twig. Anyone could do it, he said. In the spring, the bark slips away easily. It was springtime. A jackknife was the only tool needed. Both my brothers had jackknives. All boys did back in the 30s. Rodney and Russell were eager to learn this new skill. I watched.

Dad told them to cut off a four inch length of box elder branch about three-quarters to an inch thick. It should be free of buds and straight. Cut a notch across the stick about an inch or two from the end. Make a V-shaped cut through the bark and into the wood just to the center of the wood. Because of the curve of the stick, the shape of the notch comes out roughly eye-shaped. It is better if the front edge of the notch is straight up and down. If there is a bud on the branch you selected, plan to put the notch there.

Next, cut a ring around the stick through the bark (only) about an inch beyond the notch. Now remove the notched part of the bark from the stick. Do this by first tapping it lightly with the butt of your knife. To remove the bark all in one piece, grasp the stick above the ring cut with one hand and with the other hand, below the ring cut. Twist the piece with the slit back and forth until it is loosened from the wood. It should slip off easily. Set the bark aside.

With the bark removed, whittle a flat plane channel from the notch to the mouthpiece. When the bark is replaced, the air will travel into the whistle through this channel. This is the final cutting step. Slide the bark back onto the stick with the notch in its original position. The whistle is now finished. Sometimes you might have to twist the bark a little bit to get the whistle to sound right. If you leave a generous uncarved part beyond the ring, you will have a good handle to hold onto. Of course, this might not work well the first time you do it. But after making two or three whistles, you will be an expert, and can show off your new-found skill to the rest of the kids.

Russell had so much fun slipping the bark off the pieces, he wanted more. He started on that poor innocent little tree and stripped every branch of its bark, large, small, and tiny. There it stood out by the driveway near the street naked as a jaybird. Mother never noticed what he was doing. When we were quiet and out of her hair, she should have remembered that was a sign of trouble brewing.

Dad saw the denuded tree when he came home from work. Rodney and I stood off to one side out of the way. We had had nothing to do with the deed and didn't want a share in the whipping that was sure to follow. It did.

The same evening our landlord happened to drive by. He quickly turned into our driveway. “What happened to the tree?” he snarled. In the ensuing conversation Dad assured him there would be no more trouble from the three of us. Dad defended us in the argument that followed, but we were ordered to move. “Evicted!,” the landlord said.

Dad found a place in a nicer neighborhood on the south side of Saginaw. We moved to State Street. There was no box elder tree there. My primary memory of that place revolved around Christmas presents. That is another story.