Sept 25th, 2026: Somebody decided that since Dolly Parton's famous for singing "Nine to Five" 9/25 is Dolly Day. Her fans embraced the idea as marching orders and here we are. I just had to see what was going on.

     

This book has been my transit read for quite a while. I got it because Strawberry Soldier was one of those books that started me on a political journey. This one wasn't like that at all. It's a diary of an Ivy League student thrust into a leadership role by his writing skills. It's a blow by blow from ringside of early rounds of anti war demonstrations in the 1960s. Since Dolly Parton was known for giving away books I decided to try and find a home for it in San Francisco.

The lady in the Dolly shirt was my first 9/25 experience of the day. She said she'd gone to Tennessee to see Dolly's last performance at the Grand Old Oprey. Told her I'd gone to Dollywood with the family when all the kids were a good age for it. We'd had a great time.

There were lots of people on the plaza.

There was Dolly, singing 9 to 5 like she'd never left.

     

The lady from the government thanked us all for being there and spoke about the importance of the day.

The hostess couldn't figure out if this was the youngest or smallest Dolly to enter the Dolly contest. We gave her a good hand. Then the other Dolly of the day contestants came out.

Not shown are the two dogs and a parrot that were also competing. We did an applause-off to pick the most Dolly Dolly.

  

Ended up with three finalists.

The winner really did a very good job on her Dolly look. She did everything right except the tiny woman part.

Then a band took the stage. They had lots of Dolly songs done in a fabulous country style. Of course they started with 9 to 5.

        

The band didn't really hold my interest. They became background music for wandering the crowd looking for eye candy.

The school was acting like Dolly had saved their bacon with a generous contribution that went beyond money.

Looks like an artist trying to live sustainably and pay some bills through his love for Dolly.

        

Wish I'd gotten a better picture of that Dolly quote. It was something like "To be generous is to be human."

There were blonde wigs everywhere.

        

That Dolly rain was another popular photo op.

The Strawberry Statement did get given away. The same person gave me "Orange is the new Black".

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