Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - January 3, 2025

A new year; a new rabbit hole

A hand on my shoulder wrested me from my peaceful slumber.

"Would you care if we delay our trip by one day?"

It was husband Art, asking about our journey to Wisconsin to visit daughter Katie and her hubby Matt.

Art explained he hadn't slept well and it was really foggy outside, making the 11-hour trip seem a bit daunting. He'd already checked with the kids and they were good with the shift.

I told him I was, too, but was concerned he wasn't feeling well.

"I'm fine. Just too wound up when I went to bed."

That was now a week ago. Damn, it's nice to be retired and to be able to change plans so effortlessly!

And that business about being "wound up?" Another benefit! When we are young, school, work, and quite possibly kids control the rhythm of our days. Options are limited. But in retirement, we are free to let our addictions take hold.

November 10 was his D-Day and H-Hour was 18:30! We had agreed to meet my brother Dave and his gal friend Marilyn in Salina for supper that evening. Dave's son Michael, wife Kristina, and their son Oliver joined us. Conversation turned to the Salina community theater production of "The Sound of Music," which Michael and family were involved in. Dave mentioned our 2022 trip to Salzburg. Michael asked us to send him anything he could share with others involved in the Salina production.

Art and I have been to Salzburg several times because the area is so beautiful. Art's mom Donna accompanied us twice. She was a talker, but became oddly quiet the first time we entered the Alps. We thought she might be getting some sleep in the back seat until she softly said, "My God, it’s just as beautiful as in a movie!"

Katie took a Salzburg "Sound of Music" (SOM) tour in 2014 and raved about it. So eight years later, when we and friends Louise "Lou" and Deb visited the area, we decided not just to take a tour, but to seek out additional movie sites a big bus couldn't travel to. Art asked us to re-watch the movie before we flew to Europe so it would be fresh in our minds.

The SOM site tours - ours and the bus company's - were spread over three days, as we added other local attractions, such as the home where Mozart was born and the chapel on the site where "Silent Night" was first performed. But the SOM elements were the principal attraction.

When we visited the place near where the last scenes in the movie were shot, Deb did a twirl, bringing to mind "The Hills Are Alive" scene performed by Julie Andrews at the film's beginning. Deb also petted a cow in the meadow where the "Do-Re-Mi" song began. Lou didn't just take the bus tour ... she took it twice!

I told Art it was one of our best trips.

But Michael's family's recent involvement triggered something in Art. In his rush to get ready for our 2022 trip, he could add only a handful to those of the bus tour. He said it was like rediscovering a partially-completed crossword puzzle. No one else cares whether you complete it, and he doubted he could locate all the sites. Still, he could feel the cool breeze emanating from the rabbit hole luring him in. And this time, he could work on it at whatever pace he chose.

Back on September 11, 2001, I, like many others, spent much of the day glued to the television watching the coverage of the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. A day or two later, feeling a need to escape and lighten the mood, I brought out "The Sound of Music" tape and watched it with Katie and older daughter Mariya. In about 2005, one of the girls gave me the 40th anniversary DVD.

Art decided to log every shot from the disc and classify each as being filmed in the Salzburg area or in the film company's California studios. He began a bit before Thanksgiving, stopping to document places he recognized.

In 2012, during a trip to Vermont, we met Johannes von Trapp - the last of the von Trapp children. Art decided a website containing details about the movie and the real family might be a handy way to organize the facts and make them readily available wherever he wanted to work on it.

Ah, another benefit of being retired - you can take your passion projects any direction you want!

The night before our recent planned trip north, Art was close to completing the logging and decided to push to complete it. It took longer than expected, and his mind was buzzing when he came to bed, hence his poor sleep.

When one of us goes down such a rabbit hole, the other almost always shares part of the journey. I spent several hours helping him log scenes until he hit his stride. Since then, locating photos, recalling the order of events, and editing Art's prose have been just a few of my tasks.

To date, he has documented the following: the movie contains 1,531 shots; 82.80 minutes (48.4 percent) were shot on location; and 76.98 minutes were filmed in the studio, leaving 11.33 minutes whose origins are unclear. Why unclear? One reason is the gazebo built in Salzburg was too small for certain shots, so the movie makers built a second, roomier version in their California studios. This makes it almost impossible to determine which is which in a scene.

At present, Art has found the locations for 79.04 minutes (95.5 percent) of the on-site shooting.

His plan is to add a map pinpointing all the sites and linking them to the related scenes.

And then what? Who knows? But never fear ... that cool breeze emanating from the next rabbit hole is probably already wafting this way!