Who’s Dolly?
Our second grandson is about to be a senior in high school. A recent trip that his Grammy and I made to the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area in Tennessee reminded me of something that I did with him toward the end of his fourth grade year.
I’m not sure about how or why all of this worked the way it did, but I drove from where we live in Paducah, KY to where our daughter and her family live in Cookeville, TN. I’m not sure, but I may have spent the night there. However all of that worked out, I took our grandson from Cookeville on one of those “end of the year school trips.” This trip was planned to let some of the kids sing in DollyWood and to enjoy a day riding the rides and doing a lot of other fun things there.
As I remember it, there were some scheduling issues that would have made it almost impossible for our grandson to ride the bus with his schoolmates. Those conflicts also kept his parents and other grandparents from having the “privilege” of spending the day in DollyWood with a bunch of fourth graders.
Along with that “privilege,” I learned (or was reminded of) a life lesson. Throughout the day, the workers at DollyWood kept reminding people about the parade that was scheduled for that afternoon. It was scheduled to start after the people from our grandson’s school were scheduled to head back to Cookeville.
The workers kept encouraging everybody to stay for the parade because, according to them, that day’s parade would be special. They kept saying, “Dolly’s in the park today and she will be in the parade!”
I kind of felt sorry for my grandson and all of those other fourth graders. Because of the schedule that the school was following for the trip, they were going to miss seeing somebody famous. If my memory serves me correctly, there was only about an hour’s difference between the time we had to leave and the time the parade started.
My disappointment for them didn’t last long, though. I kept hearing the same question over and over again from those fourth graders:
Who’s Dolly?
All that those kids apparently knew was that they were having a fun day at a theme park named DollyWood. They never made the connection between the name of that park and Dolly Parton. They didn’t even know who Dolly Parton was! In addition to that, they apparently didn’t even care!
I hope I learned something that day. I hope I learned that I was doing something that day that was much more important than anything that Dolly Parton has ever done or will ever do.
Admittedly, she has much more money than I will ever have or that I could even imagine having. The number of people who recognize her name, her image, her voice, etc. is probably in the millions. It was supposed to be a “super big deal” for some fourth graders to actually get to do what the vast majority of those millions of people will never get to do. They would get to see a wealthy, talented, famous superstar in person!! What could be better than that???
What is immensely better than that for me was that a grandfather and a grandson got to spend some time together. He may not remember much about that day. As I’ve already indicated, I don’t remember some of the details myself.
The details aren’t important. What is important is that this young man who is about to be a senior in high school, his two siblings, and two cousins will never ask this question: “Who’s Grampy?”
The reason for that is that we’ve shared time together, “made memories,” and have a relationship with each other. They may roll their eyes when I tell some stale old joke for the umpteenth time, try to be funny and wind up doing something stupid, etc., but I know I’m more to them than some celebrity they don’t even know who might or might not wave at them in a parade.
The older I get, the more I realize the futility of “trying to make a name for myself.” Real meaning in life is not about fame, fortune, notoriety, or any of the things normally associated with “the rich and famous.” Life is much more about close, long-lasting, meaningful relationships.
Before the parade at DollyWood even started, our grandson crawled into a vehicle with somebody he knew loved him and would do his best to get him safely home. We left behind a chance to catch a glimpse of a celebrity who didn’t know or care about him and whom he did not know or care about.
I hope that meant something to him. It certainly did to me.
It still does.
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AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
