[TR] that tin whistle

[Jim Muller]

There is a point to this title.  A little child's poem my dad used to 
joke about went like this:

I had a wooden whistle but it wouldn' whistle
So I bought a tin whistle now I tin whistle.

You see, I had a wooden starter but it wouldn't start.  So I bought a 
new starter and told myself now I tin start.  It started the Spitfire 
exactly once.  Once only.  Once was the the number of times it 
started the Spitfire, not twice, nor any more than once nor less, but 
once.  Now it's wooden again.

I put an ohmmeter on it and it read infinite.  A neighbor suggested 
hitting it with a hammer, so I tapped it a few times and the ohmage 
read out as non-infinite.  (Perhaps I must pay more 'ohmage to Lucas, 
Prince of Darkness.)  Even after I pulled it from the car it wooden 
spin when I applied battery directly to the input.  (Yes, very 
carefully.)  And it read infinite again.  Spinning the shaft by hand 
didn't change that critical state.  It seems to be dead.  At this 
rate I'm glad it didn't start the car exactly twice, or I'd be stuck 
somewhere.  The only stuckness I have to worry about at the moment is 
that it is stuck in the driveway, blocking the GT6 that is now stuck 
in the garage.

A week or so ago Fred Thomas kindly suggested I and the car needed a 
beer, and not a "lite" one.  Today I tried India Brown Ale from 
Dogfish Head Brewery.  Wow.  Not for the faint-of-heart, surely not 
lite by any spelling.  It softened the trauma for sure.  But the 
starter still wooden start.

This story is getting old.

Jim Muller
jimmuller at rcn.com