Von Trapp Family mangled

[This is not a story of mayhem.]

 
We had a lovely day of rain turning to snow in North Texas.  I watched the snow with Dad, and read tidbits from the Sunday paper aloud.  He eventually requested the sports section and the Parade magazine, and perused them without squinting. 

 
The weather outside is frightful, but the roses are delightful.  The timing is unfortunate.  With this being Sunday afternoon I have little hope for a "snow day" tomorrow.  The big fat flakes are almost gone.


Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

The roses at the condo entrance look magical in their snow bonnets.  I was humming about snowflakes on roses and whiskers on mittens plus great Keystone Koppers while I snapped these photos.  Dad had just opined loudly out of the blue that the Plano police are just a bunch of Keystone cops.  Where on earth did he get that?  He's only been in town a week!


Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

My sister's choir rode around Austria in a bus with an ad for the Trapp Family Singers on the side, or some such story.  I probably have the details skewed, but she did go to Austria with her choir, and we did talk about "The Sound of Music" last weekend.  She was reading the autobiography of Agathe Von Trapp to learn the real story of the family compared to the movie.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

The 1965 movie didn't work for me.  It was a goatherd problem.  Even at age ten I didn't like things too sugar-coated.  I had been listening to the original Broadway cast album with Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel for eons by then.

In 1963 my grandma Halma and I received tickets to see the touring Broadway show at Lincoln's Stuart Theater.  What a Christmas present!  We sat "in the loge".  It was a major event of my childhood.  It was snowing.  Dad couldn't find a parking place for the '54 Chevy, so he let his mother and I out by the Miller & Paine department store to walk across "O" Street to the theater.  We stepped across the steam vents in the sidewalk.  I'm pretty sure we wore overshoes--the better to cross the Alps!

My parents had seen the travelling Broadway show at Omaha's Music Hall in the spring of 1961.  Florence Henderson starred as Maria.  I know this because I have the programs my mom saved.

The big red dictionary says "in the loge" is "in the front rows of a theater's mezzanine".  Magical words and places for a young girl. 

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder