This New Blog Has
Deep, Broad Roots

Dolly Haik-Adams Berthelot, © 2025

Happy St Patrick’s Day! This festive holiday celebrates the roots of one immigrant group, and—like many heritage holidays—can remind all of us where we came from. Not necessarily Ireland (March 17) or Mexico (Cinco de Mayo May 5) or Africa (Kwanzaa Dec 26-Jan 1), but mostly from ‘somewhere else.’  

DEEP ROOTS: I’m “from” Bogalusa LA, to be exact, long, long ago. Graduated Bogalusa High School 1962, Southeastern Louisiana College in 1966, was married that Dec. 26, had catapulted to editor of the weekly SLC Lion’s Roar then editor of the Tri-parish Daily Star, all in Hammond. Neither job was typical for young women of that time and place, but I’ve never aspired to typical. 

My own parents were both children of immigrants, Dad half German or Slavic and Mom full Lebanese. Mama’s Papa was a United Fruit stowaway who landed in New Orleans, and ultimately the Haiks impacted the future of multitudes. 

I’ve always been drawn to people’s stories and different cultures, and I couldn’t wait to explore the world beyond my roots and get to know a much richer diversity. I’m grateful for every experience, each a “growth spurt” of sorts. I’ll share some influences and moments along the way.

Dr Dolly’s Musings… will simply grow out of my experience, my mind and heart. I’ll draw from any and every aspect of my history, thoughts, concerns, values, teachings, observations, my loves and my loathes, questions, whims. It will defy the typically recommended categories and niche marketing boxes, just as my multifaceted meandering career has strayed from narrow paths and rigid borders. My mind is a wandering migrant.

Here’s a very compressed background. 

PERSONAL; I’m the eldest of seven quite varied children, 6 girls and one baby brother, all still scattered across the South and with our children mostly all scattered around the country. “The Adams Sibs” and most next generations never miss Christmas together. I’ve been widowed since 2012 after 45 years married to a Cajun I met at SLC who later earned a masters and doctorate as I did from University of Tennessee. Ron helped me cope with complex chronic medical issues and practical matters across our decades together and navigate much of the world during our young-mid adulthood, and he helped keep our antique Pensacola Bayou Bungalow functioning—until he couldn’t. 

Then, increasingly Dr. Ron Berthelot relied on me for every essential thru his hard years of Parkinson’s with dementia, a bleeding stroke, and his wise, courageous choice to leave this earth in 2012, before getting even worse. 

In 2014, I completed IMPERFECT LOVE, a frank memoir about all that, and I have still lacked the courage to publish it.

Ron and I had and reared together one much-beloved son, Destin, who has long lived on the west coast, now Seattle, with his second wife Taryn Gallner, a South Florida woman he met in Los Angeles. 

Living alone now in my 4th floor condo overlooking Pensacola Bay, within some limitations, I simply enjoy life, write, do iPhone photography (mostly sky and bay, some shown here and elsewhere on line) and occasionally accept select communication and writing and editing clients.

Reared Catholic, I have been active at Pensacola Unitarian Universalist Church for 40 years, consider myself a free-thinking mystical humanist UU, about which my memoir SCARS TO STARS explains much, and a progressive Democrat currently more concerned than ever about my beloved country. 

I especially enjoy tasty food and warm conversation with friends and family, reading, book clubs, good films, exploring art galleries and museums, lectures, theater, ballet, modern dance, and music, particularly smooth jazz, blues, and classical. I’m woefully ignorant about way too much, but I love learning. 

PROFESSIONAL: After leaving my Daily News editorship for the stunning Smoky Mountains area and more progressive town of Oak Ridge, TN, I briefly edited publications for Atomic Energy Commission scientists (lucrative, but boring) and finished a memorable year teaching lovable coal miners’ kids in remote Lake City (unforgettable, but too much hill driving). I loved teaching journalism, creative writing, English, and Black Lit, etc. at Oak Ridge (TN) High School and nurturing talented students to win highest awards possible for a weekly newspaper. I was then our family breadwinner, Ron in UT grad school.

Being too controversial for tenure, I was released in a furor of support; we sold everything (life was much simpler then) and gleefully left for Ron’s University Maryland teaching opportunity in Turkey and Germany, where I soon became a freewheeling, international writer and photographer publishing regularly in magazines and later with award-wining photos in galleries around the US. 

Family crisis brought us back to the US and soon thereafter back to our beloved mountains to both pursue and ultimately earn masters and doctoral degrees. 

My highlight was a year conceiving and developing PIONEER SPIRIT 76, the beautiful BicenTENNial anthology of the Smoky Mountains Region, reflecting not only my writing, photography, editing, and design, but a rich variety of talent from that then untapped area. I do like initiating new creative projects and nurturing talent in others. Always have, hope I always will.

Having subsequently resettled in charming Pensacola, Fl, which didn’t provide me the academic opportunity expected, but did bring the surprise blessing of a child in 1977, in the early-mid 1980s I became communication journalism professor at Loyola University of the South and then decided I’d rather raise our young son in Pensacola, which Ron and I both loved dearly, than in crime-ridden New Orleans, exciting as that city tends to be. 

My independent, borderless spirit thrived teaching various courses for area colleges and especially being an independent communication consultant, creative seminar developer leader, unity in diversity fosterer, occasional freelance writer/photographer, and author of PERFECTLY SQUARE, A Fantasy Fable For All Ages (1995 and expanded, upgraded color version 2017); SCARS TO STARS, Evolving Mystical Humanist UU (2021); TAKING CONTROL, Creek Roots, Airman Wings, Family Heart; and serving as editor/advisor/writer for many clients’ books, articles, and curricula. Special interest in life stories, biographies, and memoirs is discussed in my long-existing mineyourmemories.com (MYM).

My devoted publisher Henry Neufeld of Energion Expand has prodded me toward doing a blog, in spite of my persistent resistance to technology. So, I’m trying it. Subsequent issues will likely be shorter.

All aspects of my personal and professional life and all who interact with me influence and infuse my perspective and thus my writing, including what shows up in Dr Dolly’s Musings…It will appear each Monday through at least April. An experiment, like most of my life. 

With this Introduction out, the March 24 issue will honor Women’s Month by heralding popular literature, listing  several of my favorite books (not my own) that highlight women doing the remarkable. Can you guess what some of these novels may be?

I’d love to hear from readers—strangers, acquaintances, friends, family, all ages, genders, lifestyles, ethnicities, beliefs, appearances, and inclinations, from any and everywhere, anyone with empathy and trustworthiness (my core values) and an open heart and mind who genuinely cares about the Common Good, anyone who may seek and find or simply stumble upon (and perhaps even influence) my ever-meandering mental path. Input, questions, and suggestions welcome: drdollyb@gmail.com.

(Featured image: Pensacola Bay Sunrise, 3/12/2025, © Dolly Berthelot)