Dolly in Duluth...

Dolly Parton, 1975
Minnesota State Fair

By Jim Heffernan

The death of Dolly Parton has caused almost unprecedented national sorrow and attention. It’s difficult to recall any other entertainer whose death drew such national mourning. Elvis? Close. 

With such a vibrant personality, tuneful singing, unique appearance and varied and impressive philanthropic efforts, the country-western singer and entertainer achieved iconic status.

 

I was not a big fan, but I recognize her rare talent and personality, always cheerful and smiling.

 

I met her once, I think. Depends on what you think “met” means. I was covering arts and entertainment for the Duluth News Tribune in the mid-1970s when Parton was booked for a concert at the DECC, around the time of her many Minnesota appearances including the Minnesota State Fair.

 

This was fairly early in her solo career and for some reason ticket sales were not going well. The show’s sponsors apparently became so concerned so they scheduled a “press conference” with Dolly to spur ticket sales, although they didn’t announce it that way.

 

I don’t think Dolly liked the idea. All local media were alerted and we met with her in a room at the lower level of the Duluth Arena-Auditorium (before it was renamed DECC). “All local media” meant three TV stations all sent reporters and camera operators who busily set up special lighting that was needed in those days. These sessions could become somewhat chaotic.

 

All I needed was a reporter’s notebook.

 

Dolly sat at the head of a fairly long table to be photographed and interviewed. She was clearly not pleased to go through this drill. I can’t recall any one-on-one exchanges with her. But it was not her usual smiling and friendly demeanor. Somewhere in the archives of the Duluth paper I suppose there is a story I wrote about the encounter.

 

I don’t recall if it helped with ticket sales. It was a long time ago. But I’m glad it gave me an opportunity to cover her appearance here up close before she reached the astonishing fame and adulation she later achieved.

 

It brings to mind a sad variation on the title of an old popular song: “Goodbye Dolly.”  

Travel travails of a registered dreamer from Duluth

  

Written by Jim Heffernan/DulthNewsTribune/08-01-2026

So, President Trump is putting his portrait on American passports now, according to media reports. Sorry Donald J., I beat you to it. I have my picture on one passport — mine. And like every picture of me ever taken, it’s not very good. Cameras hate me.

Traffic cops recoil in horror as they look at my driver’s license photo when I get picked up for speeding or other crimes and misdemeanors. But let’s move on.

I have had several interesting experiences with my passport over the years, including the first time I applied for it, a process I described here many years ago but bears repeating — just for laughs. 

We were planning our first trip to Europe so I went to the Duluth Post Office to go through the passport paces. 

Most importantly, you must prove that you are who you say you are. At the time they seemed to prefer birth certificates, so I had to go to the St. Louis County Courthouse here in Duluth to get mine. 

So up to the Civic Center courthouse I dashed, found my way to the proper desk and asked for a copy of my birth certificate. No problem; the friendly clerk located it and made a copy.

But looking it over, my birth was registered without my first name. It said Baby Boy Heffernan. I had always thought my parents, should they get a boy, were going to name me James the whole time they were expecting me. It’s an old family given name, including that of my paternal grandfather. It’s in the Bible. It’s the NAME of the English version of the Bible.

Nope, “Baby Boy” on my birth certificate. That’s in the Bible too, in Bethlehem, but not good enough for the passport people, although it could come in handy at the Pearly Gates. I had to prove I was me in some other way, they told me. Old school report cards would be okay, they suggested.

Well, I dug some up in the family archives. I found a couple from my elementary school years at Lincoln School in what was then called the West End.

I brought the report card to the passport police and it was sufficient to qualify me for a United States passport, although it was humiliating at the same time. On the old report card, in notes to my parents, the teacher had written that I was a “dreamer” and stared out the window when I should have been buckling down. No wonder I never mastered the multiplication table. 

Still, I qualified for the passport in spite of being a dreamer, and off we went to Europe a while later on a trip to see it.

Most of the border stops were routine, with officials in uniform glancing at the passport, stamping it and signaling to move on.  I have been to Europe a few more times since then, always with my passport in my pocket and experiencing different reactions in different countries. Border agents in St. Petersburg, Russia, seemed awfully stern. I must look like a spy, too.

After all of that travel across the pond, my most challenging experience with my passport was on a trip to Canada a few years ago — before the recent difficulties between the U.S. and Canada. We had shot up to International Falls on a brief car trip and decided to go over to Fort Frances, Ontario.

We had brought our passports for the trip to cross an international border and routinely passed into Canada. It was on the way back to Minnesota that we encountered the most difficult border crossing I had ever experienced, including in Russia and other European destinations.

Rolling back into Minnesota, U.S. border agents ordered us out of the car as we proffered our passports. Then they ordered us to open the car’s trunk so they could inspect our luggage. Finding nothing suspicious, they let us back into our home state., a state we had lived in all our lives.

Maybe if we’d had Trump’s picture on the passport, we’d have fared better. Trouble is he wasn’t president at the time, so it was Biden’s fault. Hmm…that has a familiar ring to it. 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.