"Fried Fridays: The Hills Are Alive..."

...with the sound of BS.

Julie Andrews is an entertainment icon, and for good, deserved reason. Set aside any of her other myriad accolades, "The Sound of Music" to this day remains a solid classic, the best of the best, a musical that transcends time. Of the many songs from that movie that we all hum but few get all the words, "My Favorite Things" is one that many can list immediately without prompting.

DATELINE: RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL (NYC, NY)

On her 69th birthday, Julie Andrews brought the 'house' down with her modern variation of the above song for an AARP convention as she sang the following tongue-in-cheek version for the attendees, according to a forwarded email I recently received:

"Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,

Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,

Bundles of magazines tied up in string,

These are a few of my favorite things...

Cadillacs and cataracts and hearing aids and glasses,

Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,

Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak,

When the bones creak,

When the knees go bad

I simply remember my favorite things,

And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets, and corn pads for bunions,

No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,

Bathrobes and heat pads and hot meals they bring,

These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no fear of sinnin',

Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',

And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,

When we remember our favorite things.

When the joints ache,

when the hips break,

When the eyes grow dim,

Then I remember the great life I've had,

And then I don't feel...so bad."

...only it didn't happen.

Julie Andrews did turn 69 on October 1, 2004. But, contrary to the mass emails and net-use postings that have abounded, she never could have performed such a feat.

Julie Andrews lost the ability to sing in 1997.

Many don't know this. Medical records are easily found. Yet, many look past such facts and continue to post/forward such fabrications just because it's cute. It's fun. The story reads well, so to heck with the truth.

But she didn't sing it.

I don't write this to refute the mass email someone sent that parlayed the above story as truth...I post it here, on my "Fried Fridays", because I'm one of the many people weary of such mass-forwarded emails, sent without first doing a verification search on

Snopes.com
TruthOrFiction.com

to make sure the email is for real...or not. And with the approaching presidential campaign, it will only get worse.

We have a responsibility to do what's right, not do what's easy...and not do what's easy because we believe in the message and we don't want to find the truth in advance of forwarding it to our contacts.

Take the time to do what's right. Don't blindly forward such articles that you don't know to be true. I, for one, will delete them, or send you a nasty-gram telling you to be more responsible.

Only that way can our "Hills" be truly more "Alive."