A poem by and now to none other than Missus Dearly Departed, Dolly Parton. May her blessing be a memory to all received the honor of her grace. Her warmth. Her evergreen realness.

Miss Dolly. Oh miss Dolly. I guess the world is finally finding out about all that you’ve been doing your big long life. you have influenced two generations of Women before me, and trust i take that torch as not a right, but as a duty to all I come from, and all I KNOW I stand for. All I know that my friends and I have stood for our entire lives. Go back generations and you will find the same thing.

If you know ball you will have heard of a certain text called Bastard Out of Carolina. It was written by a fellow Dyke from Greenville County, South Carolina in 1992, after she gained the clarity needed to understand her roots by moving away. When I read it for the first time, winter break maybe sophomore year (don’t rmember details those were the Dark Ages), I cried and cried and cried in my grandfather‘s house I knew I’d never see again after I went back to NYC. I think I was alone. Maybe with my demented grandma the month before god gave her the grace to pass. I don’t know. But I knew the House I was safe in all my childhood would no longer be There.

Deeeeeeep in the mountains of Appalachia (mountains you think are small), us girls are scrappy. Even scrappier if we know since we were little that we can’t trust the boys. Some boys have always been my allies. Here I call them My Twinks. I love my twinks. We keep us safe. You are not those boys.

My friends both home and here know the real me. Know my real character.

My Integrity is something nobody. Nobody. Will ever be able to take from me. You don’t scare me anymore.

not even my personally assigned Columbia Center of Undergraduate Management Strategic Intervention Crisis Task Force Committee Enemy. I know a Cop when I see one, just like I can smell shit when I see it (John Jay 14th floor knows that all too well).

You (Big Columbia) really tested us from 2023-now. But you picked on the wrong group of poor wittle dumb innocent 18 year olds :(

Did you really think a Columbia student wasn’t going to figure out how to graduate? Frankly an insult to our deep, vast intelligence.

Always remember the real Appalachia. (Not the fake palantir JD Vance private equity uncouth fake monster you’ve been told we are)

Don’t try to cry your way out of this 
Don’t try to lie or I’ll catch you in it 
Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you 
Just because I’m blonde 
Don’t think I’m dumb 
Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool 
When you left you thought I’d sit 
An’ you thought I’d wait 
An’ you thought I’d cry 
You called me a dumb blonde 
Ah, but somehow I lived through it 
And you know if there’s one thing this blonde has learned 
Blondes have more fun

You flew too high up off the ground 
It’s stormy wheater an’ had to come back down 
But I’ve found new thread for my old spool 
Just because I’m blonde 
Don’t think I’m dumb 
Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool

When you left you thought I’d sit 
An’ you thought I’d wait 
An’ you thought I’d cry 
You called me a dumb blonde 
Ah, but somehow I lived through it 
And you know if there’s one thing this blonde has learned 
Blondes have more fun

You flew too high up off the ground 
It’s stormy wheater an’ had to come back down 
But I’ve found new thread for my old spool 
Just because I’m blonde 
Don’t think I’m dumb 
Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool

Written by: Curly Putman

Album: Hello, I’m Dolly (her very first, the one that got the town talkin😘)

Released: 1967 ❤️

Lyrics provided by Musixmatch

Printed by the realest blonde you’ll ever meet – RA Maggie xoxo

Header via Maggie Aufmuth