Dolly Parton

Obsessions are strange things. I should know, I tend to have a bit of an obsessive personality myself. My obsessions are few and far between, I never know when they are going to strike, but when they do, that's it, game over. Whatever it may be, it has rented every room in my head, evicting all other tenants. This is by way of an introduction to a netflix documentary I watched recently, For the Love of Dolly.

I have to admit I watched this with the same sick fascination I watch those housewives on Bravo.  Once watching, I couldn't stop. I have liked Dolly Parton ever since my son and his family lived in Knoxville with their baby, Max. It seems Dolly Parton sends a book to every baby in East Tennessee every year until they are five. She does it without fanfare because she is concerned about the high rate of illiteracy in Tennessee.  (I am adding information at the end of this post about her program.)

Because I admire her dedication towards combatting illiteracy, I was curious to know if there are more good works from our little well endowed friend . Watching this documentary reveals none of that, as a matter of fact we see very little of Dolly at all. What we do see are five or six people so consumed with collecting Dolly Parton memorabilia they can hardly fit into their homes. Mannequins, posters, dolls, dresses, life-size cut outs. 

One young woman in California went to Tennessee and visited the log cabin where Dolly grew up, returned and built the exact replica, filling the yard with life-sized Dolly dolls. She prays to her every night, believing that Dolly is her mother. Another actually made his Dolly dolls. They were beautiful, I make dolls myself, and his are amazing. His entire home is full of Dolly dolls, he was quite serious when he said he would have to move into a bigger house because of his doll collection. 

The film disturbed me beyond belief. If these people put their time and energy into a worthy cause, any worthy cause, rather than obsessing about coming up with the money to go to the next Dolly Parton Day Parade, they could change the world. Instead they have turned a country singer into their goddess. Projection is a powerful thing, Carl Jung would have had a field day with this.

In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee, USA. Dolly's vision was to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of a specially selected book each month. By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, she wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income. Making A Difference: Dolly’s Imagination Library became so popular that in the year 2000 she announced that she would make the program available for replication to any community that was willing to partner with her to support it locally. 

Since the initial program launch in the United States, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has gone from just a few dozen books to nearly 40,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, into Canada and across the proverbial pond into the United Kingdom! Currently over 1600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 700,000 children each and every month. Already statistics and independent reports have shown Dolly Parton's Imagination Library drastically improves early childhood literacy for children enrolled in the program. Further studies have shown improved scores during early literacy testing.

It's All Temporary