signs beside the River Rampage ride indicate a recent anniversary for DollywoodMy friend Bryson picks me up at my Knoxville hostel to go to Dollywood. He has a congenital heart condition, so he gets in at a discount all summer long. And he goes three or four times each summer.
I am initially skeptical that reality-heavy Dollywood will sustain my interest beyond a curiousity go.
Consider how most people read a biography once but return to a good novel over and over. With other theme parks, a reliance on fictional characters, iconography, and familiar mythology creates this type of respite. The burdens of paying the rent and baking bread for breakfast can wait.
Dolly Parton’s life story, however, is different. It encourages visitors to consider their daily lives as opportunities to be heroic.
(clockwise from upper left): Dolly is not hiding her involvement; each ticket has her name and likeness on it. An iconic map makes navigating the many park villages easy. Dolly's home-on-wheels gives visitors a chance to see what life on the road is like for a country musician. The book train for Dolly's Imagination Library.
That understanding begins with Parton’s philanthropy. Beyond Bryson’s gate discount, Parton is the organizing force behind The Imagination Library – an international foundation that provides free books to pre-kindergarten youngsters.
I think about the books I purchased for my niece and nephew, “doesn’t everyone buy books for the children in their life.”
Well, yes, that’s kind of the point. Dolly has a ginormous life.
In nearby Sevierville, Parton established a center for women’s health services. She might as well be helping her neighbor pay for a mamogram.
Everyone I meet on my trip to Tennessee seems to have a story of how they have been personally touched by her benevolence. Her interests employ literally thousands of people in Nashville and Pigeon Forge alone.
Bryson has an interesting way of putting it: “Out here, there are three kinds of money: old money, new money, and Dolly money.”
Yours Truly and my pal Bryson in front of the Dollywood Express that chugs guests to the park's various corners
Among her greater extravagances are the park's Vegas-scale musicals. They run three times a day, simultaneous to one another.
Bryson and I snag air conditioned seats for “Dreamland Drive-In,” a jukebox revue and “Sha-Kon-O-Hey!” for which Parton wrote original music.
Parton’s journey takes on depth for me at the Smoky Mountain Home and Dolly Museum attractions.
The first is a replica of Parton’s two-room childhood home, decorated with treasures from the original.
The second is a museum filled with Parton clippings and displays.
I consider my father’s beginnings on a chicken farm in Oklahoma. How he moved to a house with modern conveniences with my great uncle in Colorado after returning to the US from war. Those were dramatic changes for him and he only lived with one sibling and one parent.
Dolly has eleven siblings!
My chance to feel tiny at one of the many photo op sites in Dollywood
Inside the museum, I read a piece on the opening of the park. People magazine inferred on their cover that Parton was a “hillbilly.”
While this term is now generally recognized as a slur, it's breezy deployment in 1986 must have had an awkward, private impact on the mountain dwellers among her fanbase.
Dollywood has the expected thrills and rides, too. Thunderhead, one of the world’s last wooden roller coasters is here. While the banks aren’t as sharp on wooden coasters, the vibration of the wood enhances the thrill of the steep, slow climbs and delicate freefalls.
My ride on Thunderhead is as smooth a ride as I’ve ever had on this type of frame, perhaps eclipsed only by the defunct Mister Twister which I rode as a child in my youth.
I enjoy the gravity defying loops of the more modern Tennessee Tornado, feeling my feet slip over my head and back again.
Bryson checks the ride site photographs after each ride. I always seem to be smiling broadly with my eyes closed.
(L to R): The grist mill from which delicious baking eminates! The Mystery Mine, a fire danger theme ride with a splash ending, and patrons strolling the Dollywood grounds.
There are eleven unique villages in the park. That doesn’t even include the separate admission water park next door.
I enjoy engaging the spaces between the villages, too.
It is cheering to hear gospel coming from a group performing in a gazebo and know it is musical celebration and not in the service of a fear-mongering liturgy.
At every walkway, Dolly’s hits whisper steadily over the park P.A. system. "Coat of Many Colors," "Nine to Five," and "Here You Come Again." She's been making them for so long, you forget there are so many.
A bald eagle winks his eye at the on-site preserve for non-releasable birds. The smell of cinnamon rolls wafts up beside the waterwheeled “grist mill."
Oh, yes, the park has a professional whittler and a participatory taffy pull.
Can this be happening? I am moved by a theme park!
