America Will Always Love Dolly!

 

by Pa Rock

Fan Boy

Alexa informed be early this morning that today is Dolly Parton's birthday - and then we welcomed the dawn with a rousing chorus of "Nine to Five!"

I have written about Dolly in the space previously, probably on multiple occasions.  I know that I have mentioned that I saw her once, along with her musical partner at the time, Porter Wagoner, at the Shrine Mosque in Springfield, Missouri.  I was in my early twenties at the time - and so was she.  I was a dumbass college kid, and she was already several rungs up the ladder of show business success.  Today, I am a worn out retiree who hasn't been gainfully employed in more than seven years, and Dolly Parton is still an active entertainer bringing joy to millions.

Dolly Parton, who grew up poor in the hills of eastern Tennessee, has led a golden life, one filled with many successes, and she has always opened her heart and shared those successes with others.

A long time ago, not too many years after I had seen Dolly and Porter in Springfield, she and her audaciously sequined fellow country singer ended their partnership of seven years - and apparently there had been some tension between the two as Dolly began pulling away and trying to start her own career.  At one point she went home, feeling frustrated with his attempts to keep her on his show, and she sat down and wrote a song about her feelings toward Porter Wagoner.  The number was called, "I Will Always Love You," and it went on to become a monster hit for Whitney Houston and was was recorded by many other artists as well.

Dolly took her ten million dollar bonanza in royalties from the recording by Whitney Houston and used that money to revitalize a black neighborhood in Nashville.   Not long after that she started a literacy program which sought to develop an interest in reading among young children by providing them with free books.  Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has donated over 100 million books to children during the past quarter of a century.

Several years ago when wildfires destroyed the homes of hundreds of people in East Tennessee, the area that had produced Dolly Parton, she directed her Dollyywood Foundation to donate $1,000 a month to families that had lost their homes.  Those payments continued over a long-term basis.

Dolly also made a personal donation of one million dollars to Vanderbilt University in Nashville for coronavirus research - work that led to the development of the Moderna vaccine.

All of that, and she still warbles like a songbird!

Happy birthday, Dolly.  America will always love you!