About fifteen years ago I took part in a grocery survey and as a part of it I was asked to name three people living or dead I’d like to have dinner with.
With such generous yet vague hypothetical circumstances I needed clarification.
Was this a shared meal? Family style or buffet? Would we be sitting around the table and eating only or was there ample opportunity for conversation? On the off chance in this hypothetical scenario if perchance we didn’t speak some universal language could we all understand each other?
The surveyor began to get frustrated with all my rapid fire clarifying questions, it was a grocery survey after all and not a deep dive into my psyche.
With my questions left unassuaged I blurted out, “Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King and Dolly Parton!”
The surveyor chuckled and said, “You’re my sixth Dolly tonight.” Her response caught me off guard and I began to ask even more questions. “Dolly really? Sixth one tonight? Do people always pick Dolly? I mean she’s amazing and I reckon I’ve got some things I’d love to talk about with her but the sixth one tonight for real?”
I reckon the telephone grocery surveyor training hadn’t covered this sort of deviant behavior and she was clearly flustered. She tried desperately to get me back on track by redirecting me and reframing her questions to me about Butterball turkeys and Great Value Green beans. Eventually we made it back on track but I still remember that tangent about Dolly.
I reckoned I wasn’t the only one she’d made a lasting impression on enough to want to sit down, share a meal and a conversation with. I’ve often thought about that imaginary dinner party between Jesus The Christ, MLK Junior, Dolly and Yours Truly.
I imagine the menu would be down home kind of foods, greens, mashed potatoes, fried pork chops, sweet tea, one of those big buttery rolls with soft real butter added and sweet tea, mine with copious amounts of lemon.
We’d discuss sin and redemption, beauty and ash. We talk about humble beginnings turned to greatness in the end. I sort of think we’d discuss haberdashery and our Mamas, other good foods, good times, and sorrow.
I reckon we’d meander about debating beautiful landscapes and I bet we’d all agree the South is a beautiful piece of Heaven right here on earth and I bet Jesus would confirm He had indeed touched it with a little bit of something extra when He formed it out of the void of nothingness.
We would talk and talk until we’d made room for dessert whereupon we’d have Red Velvet cake with real cream cheese icing an inch high and a glass of milk to wash the cake down and cut the sweetness.
At the end of our meal we’d all hug and recognize how there were threads upon threads that had linked us all together through time, space, circumstance and grace. Dolly might make some bubbly comment about it being a thread that could sew together a coat of many colors. We’d all laugh with her, knowing she was right.
As we would depart we would do what friends often do at the conclusion of a good evening, we’d get together like this again soon, for this meeting was long overdue.
And then we’d be on our separate ways, relegated to our respective timelines and places, journeys and things to do.
I’ve always held Dolly in high regard, I just don’t think I could ever articulate why, it took her departure from this world for me to do that.
I love her when she sings Jolene. I loved her in Steel Magnolias when she was Truvy and hugged Spud as she declared she was “a chain!” I loved it when I learned she single-handedly combated illiteracy and took it upon herself to put books in the hands of children no matter their status, economic background or any other defining factor that so often robs the very ones most in need.
I love the idea that she could’ve established her theme park and legacy anywhere but she chose the most beautiful place on earth to her…Home.
Back in March of 2024 I was on a road trip with a friend and we stopped at a rest stop somewhere in Tennessee. I insisted on having my photo made with a close to life size cardboard Dolly cutout. I figured in my lifetime it was the closest I would get to Dolly for real.
The rest stop cutout was the closest I’d get to her humble influence, her incredible wisdom, her infectious laughter, and her infinite legacy, that was until today, Nine-Two-Five when I awoke thinking of Dolly and asking what she would do, a question brought fresh to me via the socials on the interwebs, The quippy Ted Lasso asked the very same question, “What would Dolly Parton do?”
Nine Two Five, the first unofficial Dolly Day, when folks all over, myself included, did just what Dolly would do.
W.W.D.D.
What would Dolly do?
She’d read, she’d take her mama for hotdog lunch and howl with laughter at the spool of thread in the console of the car. “Mama you sewing at traffic stops now?” She’d cackle and talk of old men wearing ankle monitors and young children and parental backfires…specifically the douche definition debacle of 2010. She’d cherish these days of mundane at a slower pace in the twilight of life.
Dolly would smile, be generous and kind. Dolly would imagine and dream, and work hard and be creative.
But whatI imagine what Dolly would want for us to do, the remember and honor her by looking upon the least with the most compassion and Dolly would encourage us all to give a little more grace to one another and be a bit more kind to ourselves.
Nine Two Five…W.W.D.D. She would love.
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