My Role in "The Sound of Music"

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Scott Smoot with bike in the Austrian Alps, virtually

In 1966, Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jack took me and my cousins to an ornate movie theatre in downtown Cincinnati for the gala premiere of The Sound of Music: a dress-up affair, with a glossy souvenir program. I didn't know nuns from Nazis, but I saw my family on the screen, and I was pretty sure that Julie Andrews was my mom.

I bring this up now because my virtual bike tour of "places I've lived or loved" has taken me to the site where the film was made. Since January 5, I've covered 277 miles, riding bike trails around Atlanta when the weather was good, and swimming indoors when it was not. On a map of the world, that distance takes me from Venice to Salzburg.

My relationship to Julie Andrews had begun with Mary Poppins the year before. That movie about children whose father is distracted by work resonated with me, as our dad was away on business so often. Their magic nanny, being close to Mom in age, hairstyle, build, and bearing, was practically my mother in every way.

The Von Trapp manor in Salzburg was the same as the palatial home of my aunt and uncle in all things that mattered to me. Curved staircase sweeping up from marble tile? Check. French doors opening to a terrace that looks out to rolling green hills? Check. A gazebo in a sculpted garden? Gazebo, no, but sculpted garden, check.

"A captain with seven children?" Eight, and more: Aunt Blanche and her sister Shirley raised their large families in homes side-by-side on a vast campus. During the summers, I was one of them. My siblings and I stayed with our grandmother, but when she had work selling real estate, she left us with Blanche. 

My awe-inspiring Uncle Jack would arrive home for dinner dressed in boots and jodhpurs, riding crop in hand, having worked out his horse -- just like Captain Von Trapp.

My family's relationship to Julie Andrews' movies was all very clear to me, except for the fact that Aunt Blanche was both the tomboy governess and the magic nanny. Blanche took us and my younger cousins to ride horses, to canoe, and to bicycle to the next town for ice cream. Often with Aunt Shirley, Blanche took us to magical places: movie theatres, live theatre, the Queen City Tour, the planetarium, fireworks, horse shows, amusement parks, and the first game played at Riverfront Stadium. Though I saw Blanche usually in company with little kids, teenagers, adult friends, and old people, she always made me feel special. She treated me as an adult.

I learned to ride a bike in Blanche's driveway and to swim in Shirley's pool.

I am grateful for these grown ups I grew up with, and for Julie Andrews.

[See memorial tributes to Uncle Jack, Aunt Blanche, and Dad. I remember my Cincinnati grandmother in an article Thelma Craig Maier and a poem Wingtips. My mother's story continues; see the latest portrait Mom's World and more at Dementia Diary. For photos and stories of other grown ups I grew up with, see the curated list of links at my page Family Corner. ]

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