We live in a world without Dolly Parton now; a world that’s a little less joyous, a little less beautiful, a little less kind. Perhaps a lot less, on all counts.
The tributes have come in from everywhere. Fellow entertainers, political figures, even an edifice: The Empire State Building was lit up in pink on the evening of her passing at 9:25, a nod to her hit song and movie “9 to 5.”
Among my favorites was from the rapper Pitbull, who collaborated with Dolly on one of his albums: “She lived an amazing life. A hardworking woman. Intelligent, sophisticated, funny, intimidating, but more than anything, a good human being with a good heart.”
A good human being with a good heart. That’s a pretty good bottom line.
Beyond the laudatory words, proposals for lasting memorials have also been floated. Leading all, in terms of popular support, is renaming the Nashville airport. After tens of thousands of people signed an online petition calling for the change, Gov. Bill Lee and the Airport Authority announced their intention to pursue the goal.
“At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world,” Lee said in a statement, “it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.”
A couple of potential snags would seemingly complicate that effort. As reported by The New York Times:
“The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, which oversees the airport and controls its name, has rules that prohibit naming any property after a person who has not been dead for at least two years. The policy also dictates that the honoree should have contributed to aviation in Tennessee or made a ‘substantial personal contribution’ to the airport authority.”
That naming policy is expected to be addressed in an Airport Authority meeting in a couple of weeks. I suspect it will be dealt with in a pro-Dolly manner.
As far as other honors go, I’m not the first to wonder if (or, more likely, when) a 2021 General Assembly effort to place a statue of Dolly on the State Capitol grounds will be revived.
Though “honored and humbled” by the earlier legislative intent, Dolly asked at the time that lawmakers not consider the bill. But she left the door enticingly open.
“Given all that is going on in the world,” she responded in a statement, “I don’t think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time. I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now or perhaps after I’m gone, if you still feel I deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.”
Current statuary residents of the grounds include Andrew Jackson, Alvin York and Sam Davis, “the Boy Hero of the Confederacy.” Dolly would certainly upgrade the aesthetics of that menagerie.
I’ve also seen an online proposal to rename Broadway, or a portion thereof, for Dolly. A better option might instead be to rename the section of Commerce Street that Dolly’s soon-to-open Song Teller Hotel occupies. We’ll see how things play out, but I’d bet on a Dolly Way – or some such – joining the Nashville street map.
On a personal level, I’m sure people have already been diving into Dolly’s extensive song catalog (more than 1,000 recordings are available) and/or taking in some of her big-screen efforts, “9 to 5” and “Steel Magnolias” perhaps chief among them.
Another option – and the one suggested by her family – is to donate to Dolly’s Imagination Library, her international literacy charity, which has donated more than 300 million books to young children since she started it in 1995.
Full disclosure: I’ve been donating to an Imagination Library affiliate in my Mississippi hometown for several years now.
Beyond all that, it seems to me the best honor any of us can pay Dolly is to try to be like Dolly. Not in terms of her career, of course. We can’t begin to approach her prodigious talents – I’d kill just to have written a single line of hers: “Pour myself a cup of ambition.”
But being a good human being with a good heart is within our ability. As Dolly also wrote, in “A Better Place to Live,” “Love is all it costs.”
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.