If I Could Sit on the Porch With Dolly

The Ozark Soul Journal

August – Week Five

Welcome.

Pull up a chair for a little while. The coffee’s warm, the porch is quiet, and there’s always room for one more neighbor.

Sometimes life has a way of putting a thought in your head when you least expect it.

This past week, I was finishing up the last pet transport route for the season and heading back west toward Missouri.

Somewhere between Knoxville and Nashville, during a pitstop, I had the urge to check Facebook.

That’s when I saw the news.

Dolly Parton had passed away.

I was through Nashville on I-40 and heading toward Memphis when it really began to sink in.

I found myself thinking about Dolly and what she meant to so many people.

She was a country music legend, of course. She sang, wrote songs, acted, entertained, and built a career that reached far beyond country music.

But I don’t think that’s what stayed on my mind.

I kept thinking about the person behind all of it.

Dolly seemed to understand something that I think many of us sometimes forget.

When you have the opportunity to do something good, you should.

She encouraged children to read through her Imagination Library. She helped create places where families could gather and be entertained. She supported education, gave generously, and continued finding ways to bring a little joy into people’s lives.

Through all of her busy career, she never seemed to forget where she came from.

And I admire that.

I also found myself wondering what it would have been like to sit on my front porch with Dolly.

I couldn’t help imagining it.

I think it would have been a hoot.

I imagine there would have been plenty of laughter, a good cup of coffee, and probably a story or two that would have left me laughing long after she finished telling it.

I’d want to ask her what kept her going all those years.

I’d want to know what she thought about small-town people and why she always seemed to have such a soft spot for them.

And I think I’d want to ask her what advice she’d give to a 56-year-old woman who decided one day to start making soap and building a little business in the Ozarks.

Something tells me she’d have an answer.

The funny thing about spending so many hours on the road is that I have a lot of time to think.

And, as usual, Country Bathworks was never far from my mind.

While traveling, I was thinking about the soap curing back home.

I was thinking about fall and winter gift bundles.

I was thinking about upcoming vendor events and new ideas that seem to appear when I’m supposed to be paying attention to the road ahead.

There’s always something waiting for me when I get home.

And this time was no different.

Within an hour of arriving home, my sister-in-law stopped by for a visit.

It was good to see her.

She lost her husband earlier this summer, and I’ve watched her work through those first difficult weeks. This visit felt different. There was still sadness, of course, but there was also conversation about what comes next.

We talked about trading garden plants and vegetable seeds next spring.

We talked about our gardens.

We talked about the ordinary things that somehow become important when life has reminded you how precious it is.

I think that’s one of the things I love about a front porch conversation.

You don’t always know where it’s going to lead.

You might start by talking about tomatoes and end up talking about life.

You might start with the weather and end up remembering someone you loved.

You might sit down for coffee with one thought on your mind and get up an hour later carrying something entirely different in your heart.

Maybe that’s why I kept thinking about Dolly.

She understood the value of a good story.

She understood laughter.

She understood giving.

And she understood that you don’t have to forget where you came from just because you’ve traveled a long way from it.

Those are lessons worth carrying forward.

As I begin settling back into life at home, I’m also starting to think ahead to 2027.

There are events throughout Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma that I wasn’t able to attend this year, and I’m already making a list of the ones I’d like to consider for next year’s calendar.

I’ve got a brand-new 2027 planner waiting for me.

It’s time to start filling those pages.

Maybe that’s another thing I’ve learned lately.

We spend so much time looking back at where we’ve been and wondering about where we’re going that it’s easy to forget we’re standing right in the middle of the story.

Today is one page.

Tomorrow will be another.

And I think the best thing we can do is try to make each page a little better than the one before it.

So this week, I’m going to remember Dolly.

Not just for the songs.

Not just for the movies.

Not just for the enormous success she built.

But for the laughter, the generosity, the encouragement, and the reminder that doing a little good can reach farther than we may ever know.

When my time comes to sit on that front porch in the next life…

I’m going to bring the coffee.

I have a feeling Dolly will have the stories.

Until next Friday…

Take a little time to sit with someone you love.

Ask them a question.

Listen to their story.

And if you have the opportunity to do a little good for someone, don’t wait for a reason.

Sometimes the smallest kindness becomes part of somebody else’s story.

— Your neighbor in the Ozarks,

Granny Sherry

Country Bathworks