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Walking with Dolly: Fathers, Quiet Acts of Love, and Pride

. Dolly Parton, Family, Family Travel, Spiritual Fitness . , , , , , , , , ,

Robert Lee Parton: This video was from 2016, and I had never seen it until Thursday morning. I fought back my own stifled sob when Dolly choked up with tears while telling about her father scrubbing her statue. Dolly Parton had immense love and respect for her father often calling him one of the smartest men she ever knew. Dolly also treasured his strong work ethic, humor, and grounded nature. She admired how hard he worked to provide for their family.

Oliver Haven Caylor: My father and I had several things in common: intellectual curiosities, spiritual curiosities, and curiosities about nature. What struck me most, as I have reflected on this over the years, is how those shared threads kept weaving themselves back into my understanding of who he was — and who I was becoming.

My father was a genius. I have no idea about his Intelligence Quotient (IQ), but when he took the  1960’s  postal exam to be a United States postal worker, he scored the highest IQ score which was at the “genius level” ever recorded at that time. I am not a genius, so when it came to school grades, I loved it when my excellent grades pleased him. It was so cool to talk to Daddy about my core curriculum activities as well as world events in an “adult manner”.

My whole, nuclear family, Daddy, Mama, Karen and I, were all baptized into Christ the same night … Tuesday July 31, 1979  ..( thanks for the refresher, Google… LOL), so for the next three years after we becoming Christians until his death, Daddy and I had a brother in Christ bond. Whether Daddy and I did scripture reading, announcements, lead a prayer or whatever church related, we would discuss and critique each other.

My father’s life was FISHING. I did enjoy fishing but not like he did. As I have grown older and “come to know myself” I enjoy being active even if it is piddling in the house or the yard. I don’t like sitting down and watching television or staring at a computer/phone for 12 hours straight nor did I want to be fishing for 12 hours straight, but my father could and would. Our strongest Nature Smart connection was being in the woods with hunting dogs. Daddy had raised and hunted with several hounds such as King, Queen, and Bolivar as a boy into teen years. I was riveted to his tales of hunting and being in the woods. It was Daddy who got me my first coonhounds, Copper and Chief, in 1982. He knew how badly I was wanting coonhounds, so he secretly investigated, found, bought, and brought me home those two awesome coonhound puppies. We raised them together.

I know Dolly told her parents she loved them and they told her they loved her. I told my father I loved him, and he told me he loved me. But, there is something about those actions speaking louder than words, right? That story made me think about my own father and Lee Parton, who were some 18 years apart and yet were very similar in some of their child rearing. The video I have embedded was not what I was expecting. I had heard two separate stories about Lee Parton’s feelings about a person’s pride, and how he felt about her statue. He did not seem to like pride, nor did my father. Until I saw this video on Thursday, I had only seen some 30 year old videos where Dolly admits she was deflated with his words of “… to the pigeons you’re just another toilet”. One evening on the way to Wednesday night Bible study, I was discussing the difficulties of the school day, and Daddy was sharing how I need to concentrate more in good ol’ Algebra II.  My father was excellent at all branches of mathematics, and I was not. However, I was learning a foreign language which I knew was a talent with which God had blessed me, and my father had never taken a foreign language. I quickly turned the tables, and told him how I had been respectfully correcting my Spanish teachers’ errors on tests and keeping my high A average. I then arrogantly quipped, “Why didn’t you take a foreign language, Daddy? Didn’t you think it might help you in your future”? Without skipping a beat, Daddy quipped back, “Well, what has it done for you? You’re still just as self-centered as you were before.” With a sudden pride deflation, I kind of melted in my passenger’s seat and thought, “Gee thanks, Daddy.” I don’t think I said a single word to him until after we left the church building that evening.

Fast forward about nine months after this dialogue to another dialogue about a month after Daddy passed. I was commiserating with Nanny, Daddy’s mother regarding his death. She and I leaned on each other after his passing. As I have written before, she had lost her father when she was in high school, so she and I now shared this unfortunate bond. I was in a depressed state sharing how I did not think Daddy was proud of me, and I was sitting beside her with tears silently rolling down my cheeks. “Son, he was so proud of you. One night after he brought me home from evening church, and it was just him and me, we sat and chatted for a few minutes. I asked him what he thought about your latest accomplishments (Spanish awards, band awards, academic awards, running in the woods with coonhounds), and he said, ‘He continually amazes me. There is no one else like him in the world’.”  I was dumbfounded and elated at the same time.

So, back to Dolly and the video about her statue and her father. When she started telling the reporter about her statue and her father, I thought, “Here we go again. It’s the tale of her father telling her she is just a pigeon’s toilet.” Nope. Her father would come to the courthouse at night when no one was around and scrub her statue. That’s where the quiet acts of love come in.

The comparison isn’t that Daddy and Lee Parton’s lives were nearly the same, but that both fathers expressed their deepest pride in ways their children almost missed entirely. Dolly did not get to spend three teen years with her father where it was just her and him. For three years, I got to have my father all to myself in my household. My sister Karen had married and was out of the house when I was thirteen, and Daddy died when I was sixteen. Dolly had to share her father with 11 brothers and sisters. She did not have the precious gift of continuous, one-on-one bonding time with her father. Dolly did not get to see him scrub her statue, but I got to see my father sit up with me and work Algebra II word problems when I was moaning that I did not understand the process of turning words into equations. He knew my wants and desires for coonhound puppies and secretly bought and brought those special fur babies home to me, and he told my Nanny, his mother, how much my accomplishments meant to him — words accompanying actions. This is what Dolly Parton’s father helped me recognize about my own: love doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it shows up at midnight with a scrub brush, or with two coonhound puppies, or in a quiet conversation with a grandmother when no one else is listening.

Looking back, I can now see that both Dolly and I were loved fiercely and quietly by men who didn’t always say it in the ways we expected — but who never stopped showing it.

What quiet act of love or pride do you remember from your father or father image? I’d love for you to share it in the comments here or on my social media pages.

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Walking with Dolly: Finding My Way Home

. Christmas Hawk, Dolly Parton, Family, Jesus Christ Follower, Parenting, Pets . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was four years old when Dolly Parton walked into my life. She owned the television screen selling Breeze laundry detergent.

I certainly didn’t know that more than fifty-five years later I would still be walking with her.

My mother, Georgie Caylor, was already a Dolly Parton fan, and when Mama, said, “Oh, there is Dolly Parton.” I knew exactly who she was. I could not recollect her songs, but somehow my four-year-old mind (okay, just a few months away from being five) decided that Dolly Parton was important, and she, indeed, was. Check her out…

And now, 55 years after this commercial, Dolly is gone from her earthly home. But perhaps that is where the meaning of her song “Home” begins.

Dolly’s earthly home in the hills around Locus Ridge, Tennessee / Pigeon Forge is like me and my childhood in the hills of North Georgia combined with my home in McDonald, Tennessee where God blessed me, Sean, Carter, and Ammon as a family for 20 years.

When I hear Dolly’s “Home” it’s not just another country music song.

From my blessed childhood, I see me and my sister, Karen, at our house in Varnell, Georgia catching June bugs in the summertime afternoons then lightning bugs later that night in our yard.

I hear whippoorwills and katydids at Nanny and Granddaddy’s house which was also in Varnell. Still at Granddaddy and Nanny’s house, I hear a Southern Railway diesel at three o’clock in the morning. The whistle and the chug are far away. It draws nearer and nearer. It’s finally just beyond the front yard shaking the 100-year-old windows, then it rumbles into the distance. Then I drift back to sleep while enjoying the smell of the 4 o’clock flowers that are blooming right beneath the open bedroom window.

Dolly’s fishing pole reminds me of being at Mamaw Wimpy’s house and pond (only about 15 miles away from Varnell) where I would literally use a cane pole to fish for bream. We would catch bream and blue gill right and left. Every once in a while, I would have to put the fishing pole down and search high and low between the pond and the barn for crickets to use as live bait. At the end of the day at Mamaw Wimpy’s we would drink ice-cold Coca-Cola or eat popsicles on her front porch as we listened to thousands of jar flies singing across Houston Valley.

Back at my house, I can feel Mamaw kissing my scrapes and scratches after falling all around the yard during summertime play; oh, my goodness that unconditional love from Mama! … I am picking corn or digging potatoes with Daddy in our summer garden listening to him tell stories of his childhood… loved, loved, loved and miss the way Daddy could tell a story…

…And somewhere at the beginning of those memories, I am four years old again, sitting in front of a television watching Dolly Parton sell Breeze detergent.

Dolly’s song then helps me change to McDonald Road where, thanks to Carter and Ammon, I got to have a second childhood. I am watching Carter and Ammon as two toddlers run through the lush green grass we sometimes had to mow twice a week with the tractor during wet summers. I am swimming under the stars in our pool. Ammon, Carter, and I are running and playing tag under the shade of the Black Walnut Trees or taking a Montessori walk for our daily science lesson. The wonderful traditions of catching lightning bugs and June bugs were passed on to Carter and Ammon from Varnell to McDonald Road. My thoughts flash up to Grindstone Mountain with 5 Black and Tan coonhounds on a moonlit, autumn evening listening to their melodious bawls and chops as they track and tree raccoons. Our dachshunds, Sophie and Buddy, hang close by to me and enjoy every smell around them in the crisp, night air. I can hear the Screech Owl and the Horned Owl make their calls to each other across the mountain. In my winter thoughts I can feel the freezing snowballs hitting me in the face when Carter and Ammon threw them at me and see my giddy children creating snow angels. It was also because of Dolly and her love of the Smoky Mountains that I included in our children’s book, “Christmas Hawk” that Hawk’s region to help Santa search and report for his good children list was between the Mississippi River and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Once again, who needs a pool when you have sprinklers! April 30, 2012
Carter & his Cannoball
Ammon & her Cannonball
Ammon, Katie, Carter, & Caleb
The Caylor-Brown’s House February 26, 2015 #Snomageddon
Ammon & Carter make snow angels on Snowmageddon Day = February 26, 2015

So, as I begin to close this post which has been over three weeks in the making, please watch Dolly’s “Home” video again…

Are you back? Home isn’t a physical house is it?  Since I fell in love with Dolly’s song, “Home” in 2014,  I believe this is what she has given me…

It has reminded me that home is not necessarily the house where we grew up, the house where we raised our children, or even the place where we happen to live today.

Home is Mama and Daddy.

Home is Nanny and Granddaddy.

Home is Mamaw Wimpy’s pond, a fishing pole, a cricket in my pocket, and the sound of jar flies humming through Houston Valley.

Home is a Southern Railway whistle fading into the darkness.

Home is five coonhounds bawling somewhere on Grindstone Mountain.

Home is lightning bugs in Varnell or McDonald Road.

Home is watching Ammon and Carter making snow angels.

Home is Carter and Ammon running through the grass.

Home is me swimming beneath the stars.

And perhaps, ultimately, home is the place toward which all of us are traveling.

For over 70 years, Dolly was singing about and honoring her earthly home that she knew so well, and for 55 years, I walked with her, sang with her, and honored both of our homes because they were so much alike. The first thing I did on Tuesday August 25, 2026, the day Dolly Parton died, upon arriving in my kitchen after school was to play “Home”.  As Dolly winked then bowed goodbye at the end of the song, I winked back at her and bawled out loud. Tears were flowing. On that day, I lost my lovely and talented walking partner who was called to her heavenly home. She now knows the eternal home that I have spent my life believing in just as she believed. And one day by the grace of God, I hope to know it too. …Until then, I will keep walking for Dolly and her legacy here on this terrestrial ball. And I will keep returning “home”.

“Raised on Dolly” is correct… this is the serving tray that my mother bought for me. The coffee set goes with it.

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Releasing Your Kids Into Their Giftedness: Guest Blogger = Mark Schultz

. Family, Learning, Parenting . , , , , , , , ,

child_gifted

 

 

Hi, Haven here, or rather I am not here; I am over on Word Refiner Mark is the Hyper-Speller at Word Refiner, and he is filling in for me this time. I suggested he join me and he grabbed the idea and here we are switching places on Earth! He has an excellent dual themed blog about children and spirituality. These are big topics for all of us here at Parenting with Pride. Mark is writing about releasing your children into their giftedness and ministry. Without further ado, the floor is yours Mark. Please bring it back with a full tank.

 

Thank you Haven, I am honored to join you and your followers today. I know you will take good care of my people on Word Refiner. Have fun!

My children are grown adults, and they are all doing well. The oldest two are pursuing careers in their chosen fields of finance. Our youngest has given us three gorgeous grand-daughters, our most valuable treasures on Earth!

We raised our children to love books and Jesus from the earliest age possible. We modeled serving Jesus in different ways by serving in church and out. They have all caught the spirit of service. The oldest did a Short Term Missions trip in Argentina, the middle (our son) went to Israel with Jews For Jesus, and the baby went to Kyrgyzstan with Youth With A Mission.

One of the important things, we learned early on was that each child has a natural bent or giftedness. It was important for us to be aware and guide our children, not break them. The formative years are from birth to about 5. Their giftedness will usually show up by that time. Fortunately, a kindergarten teacher pointed it out to us, otherwise we might have missed the signs.

Esther, our oldest, had an epiphany at an early age of 6, she committed to listen only to Contemporary Christian music. We bought lots of it for her. She made tapes of herself being a radio DJ and introducing the songs. She listened to the local CCM radio station and called in a lot to talk with the disc jockeys. She convinced one man to let her see the inside of the radio station. I took her down there around 8 pm one night when Chris, the particular dj, was on duty. I watched him like a hawk and discovered he was very likeable and loved Jesus as much as we did. I took her to the radio station many times, so Chris could mentor her and she was allowed to volunteer. I was glad when she got her license to drive. Her volunteering eventually became a job working the midnight shift. She started her own program on another station and even found a sponsor to pay the airtime.

We went to a large church, one of the largest in the area, around 10,000 members and multiple services each weekend. There was a well-equipped Audio-Video department and our son, David, only 13 years old, wanted to help. He was very into technology. There was a policy in place at that time forbidding children from operating the expensive equipment, many thousands of dollars had been invested. It was very understandable to everyone, except David.

David was persistent, he hung around the sound booth or the camera stations for weeks, talking to anyone who would talk with him. The weeks turned into months, and David was there every week for at least one service. We lived a little over a mile from the church so he was allowed to get there on his own.

After 6 months, it became obvious to Doug, the department head and the entire department that David was not going away. They decided to train and mentor him, giving him a chance. The department was chronically understaffed, every church suffers from that problem I think. David really applied himself and proved that he was more than capable. He was also unencumbered by job or wife. He was very available. He began to fill in wherever there was a need. Sometimes he did multiple services. Eventually, he was part of a sound team and a video team. He worked very hard and proved to be quite reliable. Doug started to notice other kids were hanging around and discovered a deep well of willing volunteers! After a couple of years over half the slots were filled by very talented and committed teenagers.

Our baby, Amy, loved children and wanted to be a mother when she grew up. While in High School church, she was allowed to help my wife with a class of kindergartners. Amy ran the games very well. After a year of success, there was a class of 2nd grade boys needing a teacher. Amy applied and was accepted. She was one of the very first high schoolers given their own Sunday School class to teach. At the end of the year, she asked to move up with the boys into the third grade. After some discussion, the idea was approved and is now standard procedure. Every teacher is expected to follow their class until they leave kid’s church for Junior High Church.

Our kids surprised us then and continue to surprise us now. They still serve in a variety of volunteer positions as adults.