LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Memoirs of celebrities are filled with several fun incidents from their childhood. The country legend Dolly Parton's very first memoir, ‘Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business’ is no exception. The ‘Rainbowland’ singer indeed talks about an interesting “unfinished business” in her memoir. The Grammy-winning country singer who “never had any store-bought toys” found enough company in her 11 siblings to keep her entertained.
The ‘My Tennessee Mountain Home’ singer once recalled, “We kids never had any store-bought toys, but we made up plenty of games to play with each other.” The ‘9 to 5’ singer and her siblings once decided they wanted to explore the world outside their home at Locust Ridge in Tennessee. An avid reader from her childhood, Parton made up her mind to visit China. But the path they chose can be called cumbersome at best.
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‘One time I decided we should dig a hole to China’
The ‘Wildflowers’ singer wrote, “One time I decided we should dig a hole to China. We picked a spot and started digging with tin cans and knives and forks, just about anything that moved a little bit of dirt,” as per Guideposts.
However, she wasn’t alone in this endeavor. Who would be if you have 11 brothers and sisters to get help from? She wrote in her memoir, “I convinced the other kids to help me, and we started digging,” before elaborating, “We picked a spot up on the mountain. I can’t imagine why.”
Instead of choosing a low land, the young gullible children rather thought the mountaintop would be the ideal place to start digging. The ‘Hello God’ singer continued, “You’d think if we were going to dig all the way to China, we would have at least given ourselves the advantage of starting in the lowest holler we could find. Kids gullible enough to try to dig to China in the first place are not likely to think of that.”
While the endeavor itself was quite hilarious, the instruments of their choice were also unique. As she shared, “We dug with tin cans and knives and forks and just about anything that would move a little bit of dirt,” as reported by Showbiz Cheatsheet.
This might seem like tiring and mundane work, but the children, in their excitement, were quite enjoying what they were doing. While digging, they would often discuss how life would be when they reach the other side of the world. “One of my brothers insisted that if we did make it to China, we would all be standing on our heads, but the rest of us pooh-poohed that notion,” wrote the ‘Jolene’ singer.
They also discussed the ‘Chinamens’ they would meet once they reach their coveted place. Parton wrote, “We did, however, have considerable discussion about what the ‘Chinamens’ would be like. What would they think of us?”
‘We learned how to dig for our dreams’
In her memoir, she continues about the incident, writing, “I went back there as an adult, and the hole was not nearly as impressive as I had remembered it,” before adding, “In fact, someone had put a little gate across the opening and was using it for a doghouse. Maybe if we had started in the holler, who knows? Even now, looking back on it, I think digging to China, or at least the attempt, was important for us.”
In her write-up, as published by Guideposts, she shared, “Even if we never did make it to the other side of the world, we learned how to dig for our dreams…kind of like the way people put feet to their prayers. We discovered that powerful combination of imagination and hard work.”
