I admit to being a Sound of Music fanatic. I mean, there are worse things to be, but I realize this movie is one of those things that divides a population. You know the drill… there are two kinds of people in the world: those who love ketchup and those who hate it; those who do the work and those who take the credit; those who love The Sound of Music and yadda yadda.
I’ve loved this movie ever since my parents took us to see it when it first came out in 1965. Safe to say I’ve seen it hundreds of times since then. When any of us saw it in the TV Guide, we would gather as a family and watch it. Even as a young adult when I was usually engaged in a pretty active social life, my friends would join me and my mom in the den to sing along with it. It was often on at Christmastime, making it seem even more festive and special. We had the album and the 8-Track, and eventually the video and finally a DVD, so the specialness began to wear off a bit. But I still loved it, just the same.
This whole thing is on my mind, because my sisters and I just gathered in Rosebud to see their performance of The Sound of Music and really enjoyed it. As a teenager, I took a bus to see a high school performance of it by myself, at an unfamiliar school across the city and starring no one I knew, because this was the first time I had ever heard of it being performed as a play. I took The Sound of Music tour on the Austria leg of my backpacking trip, I have sung some of the songs at karaoke, and have even seen a play about people who are slightly obsessed with The Sound of Music. I went to that with my mom, who I blame for starting the whole thing.
I can recite the movie from start to finish – and I don’t mean just the songs, I mean every line of dialogue and the exact delivery of each. And I’m not alone! If you ever venture to bring this movie up in conversation, many people will share their Sound of Music experiences. At my first full time job when I was 18, I worked with someone whose aunt played Sister Margaretta in the original movie (the nice one, who describes Maria as a lamb). I know someone who was left an inheritance with the caveat that it be used to take her entire family to The Sound of Music tour in Austria. My friend’s mother dressed all seven of her kids in old drapes after seeing the movie.
The list goes on and on, but I will stop here before I risk losing some readers! After all, I’ve heard that some of the actors from the actual movie don’t even like it. But for me, it’s pretty safe to say that my heart has been blessed by the sound of music.
Sandy Bexon is stepping into retirement after over 35 years as a communications professional, reporter and writer. She lives in Red Deer.
