I asked my editor to wait about a week to publish this. I have no interest in climbing atop her grave here. Just to tell a funny story, and provide context. Oh, and to put it together with many things we may not have known about Dolly.
Yes, I’m SURE my readers are surprised, but I can be a wiseass.
Maybe not so surprised?
I admit I probably screwed myself. Being at the time a Nashville songwriter, out there on Music Row promoting my songs, maybe I should have looked upon her popping into the office where I was working as an opportunity? Not an opportunity to practice my wiseass-ery?
My wife and I lived in Nashville for 44 years. I had many jobs, including 2 record companies… one on the Row, transferring Porsches, Audis, Mazdas for a dealer (Boy, was THAT fun!), 3 radio stations; two if you count the one I was hired at 2x. (Different owners.)
One of those jobs was at WSM, The Grand Ole Opry station. I had a very lowly position in programming where we helped determine rotation of songs. A lot of phone work, which I excelled at.
I have always been a hard worker, always trying to find the best way to be better at what I do. Usually a great plan though there are exceptions, like where I tried to mow a doctor’s lawn better and ended up one foot under the mower. At WSM I was told they never promote from within, always hire from without. Still I tried to do the best I could, always had more surveys done at the end of the night than anyone else, except the night my temp his 103, then 106.
As you can probably tell there are a lot of side stories here I’m skimping on to get to the main event.
Nashville Network, at the time, did some interviews at the station. That’s how I met John Hartford and we became friends. Thanks John: thanks to John’s suggestion for 30 years I toured with my own kid shows: music, magic and puppets.
But let’s get to the night I met Dolly Parton.
Charlie Chase and I shared an office. (Funny man. I asked of what use a braille copy of Playboy was he had on his desk and he said, “Oh.. You FEEL the BUMPS!”) Dolly popped her head in the door and said, “Young maaaan, can you tale me where da bathrooom is?” (I tried to mimic her “she should have trademarked it” brogue.)
Being the wiseass I am I pointed the way and told her…
“Go down this hall. There are three doors. Open one, and if no one screams, you’ve got the right one!”
Dolly looked at me as if I had gone mad and then walked the way I pointed.
BTW, my wife would chime in, “That’s cause you ARE crazy.”
Just as an aside, I was right. We had three bathrooms that nowadays would be labeled “Unisex,” or have one of those many funny signs.
Why three unisex bathrooms? Because DJs have limited time when a feed may be coming in or a record is on the table. It’s all about timing.
Bad timing? (Again, I’m skipping a lot of my own, personal, “bad timing” stories here.) This was probably one of my many major cases of bad timing. My bad timing with my wiseass-ery led to a missed opportunity. Thinking back there are at least a few songs I could have suggested to Dolly that I wrote, but that was considered tacky and self serving. (Like the day Millie stuck a Ken promo tape at Wardrobe into Glen Campbell’s underwear box. Yup, another story I’m skimping on there too.)
So much has been written about her that has opened our eyes. I never knew how much she gave without demanding recognition. Unlike a certain someone she doesn’t constantly brag about how great everything she did, or even mention it in public. (Unlike me too. I tend to tell true stories, and my career involved fiction for kids.) Peole like Dolly humble me.
How much of a contrast she was, especially compared to all the nasty and meanness that’s so popular these days. This really is a time for bullies grab the controls of society and drive us all off the cliff down to chaos, bitterness and disgusting behavior. A time for them to control social media, social platforms. A certain powerful bully started his own because he wasn’t getting the amount of attention he demands. In his bottomless thirst lies madness, along with bullying, lying and promoting a nasty brand of hate puked on anyone who dares disagree with him.
Something Dolly would never have done.
That’s NOT Dolly.
She also worked with kids promoting literacy.
Like I typed, “Missed opportunity.” Apparently we had similar interests. Not that I’m unhappy with my choice, or John’s advice. 30 years on the road; sometimes 10 months out out the year. Never got rich, but that was never the point. And my wife and I have been together closing in on 53 years: our first marriage.
How many entertainers can say that?
Dolly could.
Her husband Carl Dean could.
My only regret is I had an opportunity to really get to know her, like I did John Hartford. But hey, part of the living I made was based on humor. Maybe just part of the practice I was doing to provide humor in my shows, or more apt the kind of humor NOT to do in my shows. My shows were Pun and absurdity-based when it came to humor. One absurdity was a toy dog screwed into a jet plane and I’d keep returning to the repeating line, “Time passed, like a dog on a jet airplane!” Another was Rocky and Bullwinkle-like puns. Oh, and also funny sounds, weird and twists in the plot. When you’re on your way to a lifetime career often it’s important to learn what NOT to do as well as WHAT to do.
I came to Nashville, hoping to work for the record industry. Never thought myself good enough to be an entertainer. The record industry, radio stations, organizing benefit concerts and finally an entertainer. A weird one. Not what I expected, but that’s OK.
Dolly started in country, hit what some would expect to be the apex: The Grand Ole Opry, country records… but then it went where I suspect she never expected: all kinds of venues, pop music, rock, projects for kids, muppets, writing music for a musical. I’d bet at times she must of thought, “This s weird.” (You know, like some idiot and three doors comment? Chuckle.)
She always seemed to remain humble when she spoke. And with a marvelous sense of humor. Oh, I get THAT.
Strange, weird, odd, yet marvelous, where this adventure called life takes us, isn’t it?
Can’t type for sure that she would have agreed, but I’d bet everything she would have.
Don’t have a pic of me doing shows for kids on this computer, or digitized, but I do playing my songs for all ages.
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“Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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