Dolly Parton, the legend, was there for everybody.
That includes me, the wannabe coastal elite with the superiority complex.
It comes with the territory, I suppose, when your formative years are in a place like Connecticut.
That’s where I “met” Dolly Parton the caricature, the one with the blonde wig, feminine silhouette, and love for attention.
In my world of conformity and college degrees, I had her all figured out.
My world, however, was not particularly worldly.
I learned this in Missouri, courtesy a girlfriend who never could get rid of me, resulting in an invitation to her Appalachian hometown of Williamson, West Virginia.
There, Dolly Parton, born just a few hours away in Sevier County, Tennessee, figuratively took my hand.
She knew what I saw—coal mines, outhouses, tobacco, and poverty.
And she showed me, slowly, what else there was to see—intellect, sunshine, music, and creativity.
Eventually, at the local bowling alley, along with gutters and pins, I saw entrepreneurship and ingenuity.
That, of course, was just the beginning.
Armed with a few degrees, I entered the real world, fully understanding concepts like feminism thanks to a women’s studies class.
I had read Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and intellectualized a New-York-City version of progress.
Then, Dolly, via Sarah Smarsh, showed me a different version of feminism.
In this version, the word was never uttered—it was lived.
It came with all sorts of humor, self-deprecation, and independence.
Prose, in this case, was replaced by lyrics and business ventures.
That education, as time moved on, began to blend with my son’s education.
And Dolly, as she tended to do, gave me yet another hand.
As I grappled with a question—what is a kid of Indian origin raised without religion by doctor parents in the Northeast doing at a Christian school known for music in the middle of Tennessee—she was there with an answer.
It was August 2025, and Dolly: A True Original Musical—destined for Broadway—was having its world premier at Belmont University, my son’s school of choice.
As I soaked in the familiar life and the familiar tunes, I took solace in one of Dolly’s simple quotes:
You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.
Twelve months later, in August 2026, as I dropped my son off in Nashville for year two, Dolly herself was just down the street—at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
Her time had come, but her hand, and her words, will always remain.
