How Dolly Parton Saved my Cousin's Life

In which your humble narrator explains, on the occasion of her 65th birthday, why Dolly is revered in his household.

My mother and her sister (my eldest aunt) are less than a year apart in age and have traditionally done lots of major life steps nearly synchronously. They married near the same time, had children at the same time and divorced at the same time. As such, sister-of-me and I spent lots of time with our similarly-aged cousins during the tandem dissolution of our respective parents' marriages.

This time together includes one particularly interesting vacation; two Moms, four kids go on the road for good times and adventure. Predictably the squabbling began almost as soon as we crossed the border from Ohio into Kentucky (about 20 minutes into the trip). Six people. One crew-cab pick-up truck. 3,675 lbs. of luggage (Mom and Auntie are not adherents of the "packing light" philosophy). We drove down. We stayed in a beach house for a week sniping at each other. At the end of the week we packed up and left for home.

By the end of the week, each of us was harboring murderous impulses toward my cousin (lets's call him Fusspot). Fusspot had spent the week complaining. About everything. All the time. He picked fights with his Mom, with his sister, with seagulls, with inanimate objects. In all fairness, it wasn't really his fault. There is a long standing rule in my family of origin that someone must ruin vacation. If the usual vacation ruiner cannot perform his or her duties, a replacement will be appointed and proceed to do everything in his or her power to provide an unpleasant experience. It has been this way since time immemorial, and so it shall be done until the end of vacations/time.

As we meandered northerly toward home, the air seethed with murderous intent. Fusspot continued to loudly air every grievance that entered his adolescent brain. At rest stops my sister and I debated whether it would be better to throw Fusspot off of a mountain top in rural North Carolina, or if we should simply make a break for it and start new lives as country western singers in Tennessee. The long knives were unsheathed.

And at about this time my aunt remembered that she had brought a book on tape. Perhaps that would help pass the time through the surprisingly heavy traffic. It was Dolly Parton's recently published audio autobiography, "Dolly: My Life and other Unfinished Business."

Her dulcet-toned delivery of the story of her hardscrabble* upbringing in Sevierville, Tennessee, her marriage to a recluse, her entertainment career, and her many reflections on her hairdos were the music that soothed the savage beast. Every single one of us was mesmerized by Dolly's harrowing tale of poverty and triumph. We were transfixed by her tendency to break into song while she told the story of her childhood. It was weird. Dolly is weird. Dolly's take on her experiences is blithely optimistic to the point of delusion, but sort of awesome?  But most importantly, Dolly did the talking. For a blessed four hours everyone shut the hell up, and we didn't commit murder. And that's how Dolly Parton saved my cousin's life.

*The use of the word "hardscrabble" is mandatory in any piece of writing concerning Ms. Parton.