Hello, Dolly!
Dollywood is the Disneyland of Appalachia
‘We’re not meant to be slouching from grief to grief’
Save those Precious Memories on your iPhone
On a crisp Friday morning in early October, before the first frost, mom and I set out from our home in deep Southwest Virginia to visit the Dollywood theme park in East Tennessee. We’d been there once before, years ago, when I was five or six years old. Dolly’s Eagle When She Flies album had just been released, and my parents bought me the cassette tape as a Christmas gift. I loved Dolly on the cover, in her white blouse and tight denim. I loved the tune “Silver and Gold” even better. Mom sang it to me as a lullaby: “Time can’t be brought back with silver and gold.” When I think of it now, I hear it in mom’s voice. “Do you remember anything about that trip?” Mom looks over at me expectantly. Through the windshield, I watch the car swallow the pavement beneath us. “I don’t know,” I reply, hesitating. “I sort of remember women dressed in pink and purple spandex with butterfly wings.” Mom searches back in her mind. “You’re right,” she says, “but it was you wearing those butterfly wings.” …
