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It All Comes Back To Dolly
October 25, 2022
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It’s so appropriate that my first outing for All Access after moving to Nashville was the revealing of a new Dolly Parton Mural in the downtown area. Let me start by telling you that for as long as I can remember, I have always been the biggest Dolly Parton fan I know. From the time I was a very little girl growing up in Eunice, Louisiana and still to this day over 40 years later. I remember being 9 years old and having to save $19 in pennies so I could join her fan club. My parents were raising five kids on two teacher’s salaries, and they didn’t really think spending $19 on a fan club membership was a smart move, when they could barely keep food on the table. I searched every couch pillow, every corner, every crevice of my house, especially my brother’s rooms looking for loose change. It took me at least 3 months, but finally I did it. I “raised” $19.
At the time, my youngest brother and sister were at that age when making my life (as the youngest child) miserable was fun for them. Especially my sister who was particularly cruel, just simply because she was the middle child and had spent most of her life up until then suffering the wrath of three brothers. So, when I finally got to join the Dolly Parton fan club and received my welcome letter and autographed photo “from Dolly,” she (my sister) made it a point to inform me that both the letter and photo weren’t actually signed by Dolly, they were signed by “her people,” and Dolly didn’t even know I existed. She said they were fake. I was devastated. It was worse than when she and my brother told me there was no Santa Clause. I love her, but I’m still not sure if I forgive her.
To me Dolly was an intellectual and emotional genius. I loved writing as I grew up and I began to love her songwriting more than even her music. Some of the hardest times of my life both growing up and as a teenager and young adult I spent reading her lyrics and believing that I could achieve anything I set my mind to. My favorite Dollyism is “It’s just a mountain, I can move it.”
I spent many a day standing on a riverbank, whether it was the Mississippi, the Cumberland, the Hudson, just listening to Dolly on my cassette player, Walkman, portable CD player and eventual iPod, making major life decisions, convincing myself that if things were tough, I would get through them no matter what, and I would come out better in the end. That worked for me for a long time, actually it still does. We just grow more patient as we grow older. My mom’s favorite question to me has always been, “So what are you going to do now?” And my answer was and is always, “I don’t know, but I will figure it out. I always do.” I had learned that from my lifetime idol Dolly.
Dolly Parton is the fourth of twelve children and came from nothing. She herself describes her family as “dirt poor” during the early years. Like many who grew up in the middle of nowhere, Dolly was bursting at the seams to get out of the Smokey Mountains. The day after she graduated from high school, she hopped on a bus to Nashville from her hometown of Sevierville in East Tennessee, determined to become a star. It didn’t happen overnight, but her first day there she met her husband of 56 years now, Carl Dean, at a launderette. Soon after that, she was off and running, first writing songs for other artists, then being marketed as a Pop artist at nineteen after being signed to Monument records.
After that, the rest is history. I can’t say “she never looked back,” because we all know that’s not true, as Dolly constantly gives back to her people, having come to the rescue with millions of dollars in donations on many occasions when natural disasters struck areas of Tennessee. And of course, her two biggest philanthropic efforts, donating $2 million to research for the Covid-19 vaccine, and the continued efforts of her Imagination Library which provides free books to children from birth up until the age of five all over the world.
As a Woman who worked in a predominately male dominated and chauvinistic industry (radio), I related to Dolly in so many ways. I fought my way through rising in the ranks, fought off creeps, learned as much as I could, taught myself a lot, took a lot of chances and held my head up high every time I was looked over for a promotion, only to lose out to a man who wasn’t half as qualified as I was, until I finally found one or two who were brave enough, and confident enough in their own capabilities to actually promote me. It was not an easy road to becoming an SVP of Programming as a Woman, but I am very grateful for the time I spent as a manager in radio. I am very lucky and have a very successful career history to show for it. But I digress….
My point is, there were no female Managers, or Programmers, or Women in positions of power when I was growing up in radio. There was only the boys club. There were no mentors, or idols for me to connect with and learn from, which at this point is a double edge sword. Because in hindsight, I had to teach myself a lot, learn from my experiences, and find other role models outside of the industry. Dolly was visible and vocal enough that she became mine.
Even before that, I had four older brothers, a football coach for a father, who had no idea how to communicate with me because I was a girl, I lived in a very small town and went to a private high school in the South where as women, we were expected to get married and have children at a young age. But there was nothing about this that I could relate to. Like Dolly, I wanted my own career and I wanted to live in the “big city.”
In fact, right after my high school graduation, I got into my car and drove first from Eunice to Nashville (13 hours), so I could see where Dolly lived and first made a name for herself. Then I drove straight to Pigeon Forge Tennessee to Dollywood (4 hours) so I could see and learn everything possible about her. I drove around Gatlinburg and Sevierville and every area I could that had to do with Dolly. I will never forget the first time I saw the statue of Dolly perched on a rock strumming a guitar that the city of Sevierville put up in her honor. I got the chills. I was so inspired. At a time when I was finally getting out, going to college, and beginning my adult life, I had never been so motivated to succeed.
And that I did, going into a field that not only allowed me to travel and be entertained, but also a field that allowed me to see Dolly Parton perform, and actually meet her once or twice. Fast Forward to this week, and I am now working for All Access Nashville, a company who’s first assignment for me when I got here was to cover the revealing of a Dolly Parton Mural in downtown Nashville, tied to a donation drive for Dolly’s Imagination Library.
As I stood on the rooftop of the Acme Feed & Seed building where the mural was painted, I watched the boats float by as I looked down on the Cumberland River. I was somewhat mentally and physically exhausted after a hellacious move and enormously stressful travel experience carrying two angry cats in cat carries through both the Las Vegas and Houston airports to get to Nashville. So, it took me a minute to come to terms with where I was in life in my head. After over two years of sitting in my apartment in Vegas, working from home and avoiding the world thanks to Covid lock down, then Covid lock down comfort, it was time for a change in my life and I was very excited. I realized I had just moved to one of my bucket list cities. Well, more importantly, my first bucket list city. The one which started with my idolization of Dolly Parton. And then it hit me. It was all coming full circle. That day, that event, and my new outlook on life…It always comes back to Dolly.
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