PLEASURES OF LIFE

I was 6 years old when The Sound of Music opened at the Ambassador Theater in Raleigh in August 1965. The movie, loosely based on the life of Maria von Trapp and her singing family, played to sold-out audiences for 61 weeks, one of only a few films the Ambassador ever hosted that required reserved seating.

Somehow my parents snagged a ticket and took me along. I’m sure my mother arranged the outing. A church soprano, she loved Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music was my first movie, and memorable for other reasons. Our tickets were for a Sunday matinee, meaning not only did we attend on the Sabbath, but we also missed church.

For this Sunday outing, we dressed to the nines. Dad wore a suit, my mom a best dress. I remember bundling up like a British schoolboy, donning my houndstooth wool suit and dapper newsboy cap.

The Ambassador was cavernous compared to our small, county seat theater. When the movie started, the curtain rose in accordion-like folds. And who can forget that opening scene, the camera closing in on Maria — via helicopter — and Andrews making those hills come alive? If we could miss church for such a stirring opening scene, surely Mother Superior could forgive Maria’s tardiness to Mass.

Beautiful scenery, with a musical narrative featuring cool kids romping around the Alps, decked out in traditional Bavarian dress, kept my attention. An intermission, another rarity, meant time to stretch, share a box of popcorn, and wonder if Maria would follow her heart and return to the widowed captain and his children.

Happily, like a Hallmark movie’s predictable plot, the captain ditched the pushy baroness and proposed to Maria. My mom cried when they married. The majesty of the cathedral’s organ during Maria’s procession engulfed the theater and brought chills. Even my dad, never a movie fan, commented how moving the scene was. We sat on the edge of our seats, wondering if the singing von Trapps would be able to compete in the Salzburg Music Festival. We cheered when they not only won but escaped the Nazis. That final trek across the Alps to freedom, accompanied by a reprise of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” brought the movie to an end and viewers to their feet in a lengthy applause.

Until I was old enough to hang with friends, Mom was my movie companion. The films, mostly beloved Disney favorites, provided fun diversions and cherished memories. But Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s blockbuster, offering moviegoers a glimpse into the life of cloistered nuns as well as a lesson about one of history’s darkest seasons, also gave us the gift of music in sound, sight and lyrics. How many Baby Boomer kids can remember that raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are favorite things and that a doe is a deer, a female deer?

Along with Rodgers and Hammerstein, I have my mom to thank for that gift. A music major who chose marriage and having a family over a degree, and possible singing career, she tolerated my dad’s love of country and Southern gospel music. Unlike most of her friends, she wasn’t an Elvis fan. The Beatles were “too much.” Stately hymns and stirring anthems, coupled with the crooning of Como, Crosby and Sinatra, were her preferences. On occasion, she would iron clothes on Saturday afternoons while listening to the Metropolitan Opera on Raleigh’s WPTF but, a product of her times, she liked a little beach music, the Temptations, some Frankie Valli. I can’t remember her singing in the shower, but she wore out our 33 rpm vinyl recording of The Sound of Music. And while my taste varies from Gregorian chant to Morgan Wallen, after listening to that album for hours, I, like Mom, can sing every song.

My mother, as well as my family, was far from perfect — like the real life Maria and von Trapp family. Mom would tell you she was no nun, but her good days, and our family’s good days, far outnumbered the challenging ones. Even in the last weeks of her life, she sang, faintly but clearly. The night she died, recordings of her favorite hymns sang her to heaven. Her goodness was passed down to her two granddaughters, whom she adored. They, like her, fell in love with The Sound of Music, wearing out our VHS copy during their childhood and teenage years. And though she did not live to meet them, I’m sure her granddaughters’ children — three great-grandsons — would be among her beloved favorite things.