Friday, October 28, 2011

Feed the Birds

For the last four or five months, my brother Ken and I have been walking together on Fridays. It gives us good brother/sister time and provides us with a good dose of outside, and of course, exercise.

About a month ago as he waited for me to get ready to walk, he saw a note I had on my kitchen table for David. The note said, "Feed the birds."

We write a lot of notes around here, David and I, as it keeps us from forgetting things that we want to do. In fact, if I have a particuarly busy day, I make a list like this:

Coffee :)
Walk with Debbie
Grocery
Watch Netflix
or Argh.
Cook dinner. :)

The notes are just a little reminder of what I wanted to do that day, but not necessarily etched in stone. After all, I am retired, and nothing is a "have to" anymore. It's more of a "want to."

Should do?

Some days my list is short:

Read.

:)

With all that said, my brother read the note and said, "You know what jumped into my head when I read that note?  Mary Poppins and Feed the birds."

Aww. Mary Poppins. One of my all time favorite childhood movies. *sigh*

As you know, I didn't see all that many movies as a kid [remember the blog about the horror movie?]. Yep. I'm trying to think of all of them now.

Mary Poppins.
The Sound of Music.
The Music Man.
and that horror movie... *shudders*


That could be it.

My daddy loved musicals -- he had reel to reel tapes of all kinds of show tunes ---South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, Show Boat, Gypsy, Annie Get Your Gun, Carnival, Hello Dolly, Mame, Camelot, The King and I, etc. etc. etc. [bwha]. I grew up singing those songs. I remember an Irving Berlin song called "Everybody's Doin' It Now" sung by Julie Andrews that I memorized and sang at the top of my lungs, sometimes pretending to be a torch singer. I was young. I had huge dreams. :)

Yes. I was am lame.

One of my favorite singers of the time was Julie Andrews, a relative newbie in the early 1960s who had appeared as a Broadway sensation and whose voice expanded four octaves -- to me, she owned "the voice" in a time of many other great female voices. 

I loved me some Julie Andrews.

In 1997, a throat operation damaged her voice: a tragedy as she had done even more fun movies like Thoroughly Modern Millie and Victor,Victoria.

That's why God allowed man to invent sound recording. He knew what was to happen to Julie Andrews. :)

Beautiful song. It brings back memories. Good ones. Enjoy.



ETA: I also saw Shenandoah. I cried for three weeks.





3 comments:

  1. Confession time: Mary Poppins is one of my all-time favorite movies.

    A I know the words of "Feed the Birds" -- by heart. It was my favorite song in the movie.

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  2. This post really made me smile.

    When I was little, I re-watched The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The King and I, Annie, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella so many times that I could sing the soundtracks of them all by heart. You just can't beat a good singalong after a hard day.

    Julie Andrews is *amazing*. When the Princess Diaries came out, it was like a dream come true. I was even happier when she sang for the first time in public in years in Princess Diaries 2. She wrote several children's books, too, that I adored as a child. :)

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  3. I remember going to see Mary Poppins with my younger cousins when it was re-released in the theater one summer. (Disney used to re-release their movies in the theater on a rotation before the days of VHS and DVD). I was irritated that I was having to go see a goofy musical with the babies of the family. Needless to say, I sang "It's a Jolly Holiday with Mary" and "Feed the Birds" and "Chim Chim Cheree" all summer long. I loved the movie, and I loved Julie Andrews.

    I also love this post about Julie Andrews, and I smile because you listened to the musicals on your dad's reel-to-reel player. I think your daddy and my daddy, had they ever met, would have been great friends. I suppose they are having a big pie in THE sky right now and smiling that their daughters share their love of music.

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