Dolly Parton Knew She Loved Carl Dean When He Told Her He Was Joining the Army and Going to Vietnam
From the beginning of their relationship up until the moment they got married, Dolly Parton was never 100% certain of how Carl Dean felt about her. But there is one moment she remembers where she became certain about him, and that’s when he told her he’d joined the army and would be going to Vietnam.
Carl’s sweet courting of Dolly didn’t include words of affirmation
After the “Down From Dover” singer and Dean started dating, Dean made a habit of visiting his beau across town. He’d bring with him a little transistor radio so the two could sit on the porch and listen to music (they sat on the porch, per Dean’s insistence, so the neighbors knew they weren’t committing any “sinful acts” as unmarried people).
“We would sit and talk and hold hands and kiss and listen to that little radio,” Parton wrote in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “Otis Redding was our favorite.”
Though Dean visited Parton frequently, he never told her he loved her. He never even told her he liked her.
“He had, and has, a strange way of talking and an odd sense of humor,” she wrote. “He was so handsome, I used to wonder if he had other girlfriends, but he never said or did anything to lead me to believe he did. Here I was falling more and more deeply in love with a man who had never given me any indication at all about his feelings for me.”
Carl told Dolly he was joining the army and going to Vietnam
Parton’s growing feelings for Dean made it all the more horrifying when he “waltzed in and told me he was joining the army and going to Vietnam.”
The “Jolene” singer said she “went berserk.”
“If I had any doubts about my feelings for him, they were instantly washed away in a flood of tears,” she wrote. “The lump in my throat told me in no uncertain terms I did not want to lose this man. The next thing that happened made me want to strangle him.”
Dean placed his hands on Parton’s shoulders and told him he was just kidding. He was joining the National Guard and going to boot camp, but it was highly unlikely that he’d be sent to Vietnman.
“Having come to know Carl as I do now, he probably painted a worse picture for me so the real story would be easier to take,” wrote Parton. “He does things like that. Sometimes I still want to strangle him, but his heart is usually in the right place. Lucky for him his throat is in the right place too, making it difficult for me to reach.”
Dolly visited Carl at boot camp
When it was time for Dean to go away to boot camp, he had still not told Parton he loved her. He also didn’t ask her to wait for him. But she did.
He did eventually call, though, and ask if Parton would come visit him. The “Coat of Many Colors” singer happily agreed.
When Parton visited Dean, it was one of the first times she’d ever worn a wig. It was in the style of a sixties bouffant. When Parton finally found Dean at camp, she ran to him and threw her arms around his body.
“He is about six feet two inches tall,” wrote Parton. “When I hugged him so hard, his chin grazed the top of my head, sending my wig flying. Carl never missed a beat. He caught my wig in one hand while he continued to hold me with the other. He gave me a deep, slow, passionate kiss. I felt that he was genuinely glad to see me. Either that or the National Guard issues handguns to its new recruits. I was certainly relieved, because I had obviously flipped my wig over him.”
