European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 3, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                August 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17 whistling As a Lull time career Peter Hassell new York times photo by Michael Norman new York times one fall Day Many years a Young Man with music on his mind was sitting in a seventh Grade Reading class in Ardsley High school in new he cannot now recall the exact Circum stances that distracted but it must have been the kind of Day or the kind of class that sets the mind to As the teacher droned the student started to he was a Young Man with a healthy a tuba player who had been wondering for some time whether it was possible to make music with just his and on that now historic he began to i was preoccupied with trying to make this i just naturally started to interlock my cup my hands and blow into the Knuckles on my All of a sudden i was making the teacher yelled at me to later on in that very same i made the sound he discovered the Hassell hand which to the Unini May seem like just another Way to but to those in the know it is so much Peter now 35 years has told this Story Many he is Well known in certain and his famous interlocking grip and repertoire of Clas Sical music have earned him an International whistling a celebrity of he whistles for reporters and television cameras and radio talk show but he is really still the same boy whistling to a free spirit with a College degree in mathematics who preferred to drive a cab for a a musician with a Fine ear blowing Cross eyed into his there Are those who might say that society does not have much use for a Man like that even in the unpredictable marketplace of music where people can make a living by spinning records it just does not seem Possi ble for a Man to whistle for his to say is to forget that whistlers have played vaudeville and Broadway and the big and it is also to forget that in every school in every there Are bored teachers and children who whistle themselves this fall he is scheduled to audition with the new England vaudeville a group of jugglers and storytellers who travel the North East entertaining in schools and churches and Small if he is Hassell will be Back in the classroom whistling i want to pass this Art he it would be a shame if some kid has the potential to be a great hand Whistler and there is no one there to show him he is looking for a some dedicated lad As he has will practice four hours a Day for that Nice baroque sound and apply it to bachs cello prelude to the suite 1 for orchestra or Tchaikovsky symphony 4 in f meanwhile Peter Hassell Waits for his running his Scales during the Day while he watches soap operas or Stock Market quotations on Cable television and in the eve Ning playing basketball at a local playground to keep in shape for what he Hopes will be his big and when time he will entertain a visitor in the room he a Warren crowded with books and records and a shelf full of trophies that Mark his distinguished he has won the worlds International whistle off in Carson and this Spring the National grand championship at the National whistlers convention in he attributed his Success to the left handed variation of the interlocking Finger he he was the first to use the interlocking grip fingers laced together to form a resonant chamber in National the Way Hassell sees he is playing an which happens to be instead of saying that he is in he says he is in Good he talks about the Way a trumpet or Cornet player and he is always sure of his octaves from Low fully expecting to play one Day with a chamber music society or a symphony Hassell had dedicated himself to classical but in his first year of Competition at the National whistlers he lost in the classical music division to a pucker rather than go Home he decided without much preparation to enter the special sounds Handel and Rossini Are one but his near perfect imitation of a laser in an electronic game is something when he does a police Siren either two tone european version or the classic Wail of a Southern sheriff it is enough to make a visitor look Over his shoulder for a squad he can whistle a mourning his Telephone number in touchtone then his Telephone Puppy burglar alarms and a Coffee pot percolating in the Early morning on a Gas Range a sound that evokes a deep desire for a Coffee and a he is sure his Donald would have approved his desire to spend the rest of his life the father used to travel with the son to some of his Early and when he was a teenage phenom Enon whistling the scores to the father thought the boy might one Day appear on Ted Macks Amateur hour or the de Sullivan Donald Hassell died in two weeks before the annual whistle off in Carson the son did not make the trip that my father was proud of Hassell perhaps the father sensed in the son had achieved a certain a kind of perpetual he went on perhaps in that i am a kid at Ermi Bombeck people Are Quick to condemn soaps and sitcoms with their simplistic answers to problems and their superficial View of family but frankly i think were we could probably learn something from the Way they present the human condition Day in and Day out and still keep the audience from nodding take Brenda Dickson on the Young and the one Day recently during a she just looked into the cameras Eye and i quit and walked off the you cannot imagine the times Ive wanted to do the Days Ive wanted to yell Over my you wanta Mother at this pay for All these hours and All that then Call Central i dont like what youre doing to my Shes dimwitted and never gets the Good and dont Tell me a woman scorned by her husband  love to do what Melinda fee did on Days of our when producers made plans to kill off her character to Pep up the Story did she take it lying Down she did she protested and so did All of her fans in front of the maybe that Why so Many women Are being written out of True life scripts these they dont fight i see a lot of advantages to running a real family like a soap or if your kids hold you up for a bigger threaten to write them out of the family next if you have a Motormouth give him amnesia for a couple of unlike soaps and sitcoms dont allow for things to How Many lives get bogged Down with the routine to and not on the when things get they run in new characters to make a pass at a rip you off or tease you with their mysterious i wonder what marriages would be like today if we had an order for 26 weeks and an option to renew or cancel depend ing on the maybe wed All work a Little harder at it if we thought we were facing whats wrong with cliffhangers in our lives not just during the summer but when a husband goes on a Busi Ness trip for a weekend or a woman goes to the Beauty shop for a Root most people View soaps and sitcoms As never never land a place where no one pregnancies Are three months Long and lip gloss is the Gross National i see it As a wonderland where kids get one or two lines a Day you never spend Days talking about mundane things like Roaches under the sink or How soft the ground is around the septic a place where you stand around in a designer waving a five Carat ring on your Finger and i cant go on living like this that the world i want to live c los Angeles times Syndicate