August 2026

There were 2 posts published in August 2026 (this is page 1 of 1).

Dolly earns her wings

Yesterday, American icon Dolly Parton died at the age of 80. Though I never met her, I admired the work she did and the example she set for being an outstanding human. Dolly was amazingly generous with her time and her fortune, helping people when they were in need and supplying over 330 million books to kids with her Imagination Library organization.

I watched many videos yesterday from people who were touched by Dolly and to be honest it got me bawling. As a friend said, what a gift it was just to be alive at the same time Dolly was!

I wish I had my own Dolly story but I wasn’t so lucky. Back in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, I was in Franklin, Tennessee, on a business trip at the same time my friend James was. James worked as a satellite truck uplink operator and was at the Ryman covering a country music awards show. I saw he was also in town and was considering going down there to say hi to him. The real reason I wanted to go was the chance that I might be in that backstage area and possibly meet Dolly. I know I would’ve been all tongue-tied if that chance presented itself, and I pondered how random people probably seek her out all the time to the point of it being creepy, so I opted not to go. Now I wish maybe I’d gone there anyway.

Dolly was the example person I could point to and say “here is what greatness humanity is capable of.” What an example she set for us all.

Adventure Landing Sails Over the Horizon

Adventure Landing as seen by the Wake County Tax Assessment department.

It hit me harder than it probably should have: a nearly forty year old mini amusement park abruptly closes up shop. I probably never visited more than a dozen times in the thirty-four years I’ve lived her, so that’s … what, once every three years? They sure weren’t making money from my visits, but I have to say that every time I visited they sure were making money. There were always kids flooding the arcade, the lines to ride go-karts were constant, and you could always count on waiting for players when you worked your way through the mini golf courses.

In fact, the day they announced they were closing, I reminded a colleague of the time many years ago when our employer took the whole team out to ride go-karts at Adventure Landing as a wacky reward for getting our product across the finish line, so to speak. I had no clue when I brought this up that Adventure Landing had already called it quits.
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