The thing I will never forget was the talk he gave about faith. While the forgettable man handed out little red leatherette-bound New Testaments, “Searchlight” passed out key chains. They were not just any key chains. Each one had a little plastic ball on the end with a single mustard seed inside. The plastic globe magnified it, much like the odd man’s eyes. If you looked closely, you could read a Bible verse on a shred of paper next to the mustard seed. It said, “If ye have faith, even as much as a single seed of mustard, ye shall be able to move mountains.” I took that to heart. In my particular case it might have said, “Ye shall move from the mountains” or even “Ye shall grow mountains and parlay them into a huge career.
American singer, songwriter and actress
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born 19 January 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, actress, author, and philanthropist, known primarily for her work in country music.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Birth Name:
Dolly Rebecca Parton
Native Name:
Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean
Alternative Names:
Dolly Parton Dean
From Wikidata (CC0)
"Another thing we loved to do was to catch June bugs and tie them to a string. I'm sure it was more fun for us than the poor weighted-down June bugs, but we had a ball flying what we called our “’lectric kites." You tried to get a real good fat June bug with a lot of lifting power. Sometimes you could just fantasize about him being able to lift you right off the ground to where you could soar up among the clouds and look down at the trees and the fields. That kind of blissful thought would sometimes come to a sudden halt when your June bug would sacrifice his leg in the name of freedom and buzz off across the pasture. In the blink of an eye you could go from being a kind of daring Smoky Mountain astronaut to being just a kid with a bug leg hanging from a piece of thread. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of those five-legged June bugs for those dreams, fleeting though they may have been.
For me, feeling pretty is feeling like I accomplished what I wanted to do that day. That's a different thing from fashion or how you wear your makeup or your eyelashes. If you know who you are and keep that in mind at all times, then you won't sacrifice your principles, your values, your true self. You can look in the mirror and feel good about yourself - even feel pretty - inside and out.
People have often asked me how we girls managed any privacy in a house with so many boys and no private rooms. It was difficult. We used to bathe with a washcloth from a pan of water. We would first start with our necks and faces and wash down as far as possible. Then we would wash the road dust from our feet and wash up as far as possible. Later, when the boys were out of the room, we would wash “possible.”
It was these circumstances that led to a very embarrassing mishap that I have told very few people and would not relate here if it were not so funny. We had an outdoor bathroom, and there were times in the middle of the night when it was very inconvenient to dress and go out into the cold just to take a leak. For these times there was a little room, actually a closet, that had in it what was called a “slop jar” or “slop bucket.” It was actually an enameled pot with flared sides that was made to accommodate a woman squatting over it to do her business. The closet had no door as such, just a sort of curtain hung on a tight piece of wire. After dark when the fire had died down, it could afford some kind of privacy at least.
One night when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I had been out on a date and got home fairly late. Everybody was already in bed, and I didn’t want to wake them and alert Mama and Daddy to the hour of my homecoming. I was absolutely bustin’ to pee, so I fumbled my way through the dark until I found the curtain to the closet and stepped inside. I dropped my panties and hiked up my skirt and assumed the position over the slop jar. I was feeling relieved in a physical sense and quite grown-up and somewhat smug that I “pulled it off,” so to speak.
But suddenly, here in the middle of my little triumph, or more accurately here in the middle of my rump, came the cold nose of an unexpected intruder. A raccoon had gotten into the house, and unbeknownst to me, we were sharing the closet as well as a very intimate moment. When I felt that cold nose on my b
She talked about working around the clock and barely having time to eat, about sweating blood trying to make enough money to pay the band, the production staff, the promoters, the organizers, and the concert spaces, “not to mention forking out a regular four figures on your spangly outfits.” “It’s not a normal way to live,” Ruthanna had said. Tell me more, was all AnnieLee could think.