Celebrating my 11th wedding anniversary and opening night of “The Sound of Music” at Hickory Theatre on the Jeffers Theatre mainstage, where we married. My amazing bride, Carol Anne, plays “Maria.” Our oldest, Timmy, debuts as “Kurt.” Dad, my best man, adored this musical, Carol Anne’s voice, and his grandson. It’s an emotional day.

“The Sound of Music” was one of Brad Dad’s favorite musicals. He would put it on every year, sometimes more, just to drive us crazy. He got a little goat puppet one year as a gift that sings “The Lonely Goatherd” song and achieved maximum “annoyingness.” Deep down we loved it, he knew it and we would do anything for him to be here to soak in all of this.

Interesting coincidence… Dad used to joke when he did absent-minded things that he was the “SOM,” which he said stood for “Stupid Old Man.” He would even sign emails and cards as “SOM.” Our hearts leapt a little when we started receiving messages and notices about the show, referring to “Sound of Music” in short as “SOM.” If you right click on many of the digital publicity images and select “save picture as,” the filename says “SOM.” Although “Sound of Music” has always had those initials, I still maintain that coincidence is simply God’s way of remaining anonymous. Plus, it makes you wonder. What are the chances that HCT would choose to do Dad’s favorite musical the year he passed, opening on our wedding anniversary on the stage we married with Timmy in his very first role and Carol Anne as the lead? Then there’s the SOM-thing.?Did I mention?the National Weather Service announces today, opening night, soon to be “Hurricane Maria” is setting its sights on the Atlantic coast? “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Makes me smile. It’s also ironic Alex Lee is producer, for many reasons. We’ll save that for another day.