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 …
