Ahhh, the 1980s! I remember them like it was only, oh, forty or so years ago! It was a transformative decade for Your Humble Narrator. In the last week of 1979 I gathered up my meager possessions and moved to Albuquerque, NM, looking to put some physical and psychic distance betwixt and between myself, my hometown of New Orleans, and my wayward adolescence. Forty-six years later I'm still here, so I guess things have more or less worked out. The passing of Dolly Parton last week brought to mind a distant episode of the Octies (I just made that word up)—a wondrous tale which has never before been publicly divulged. This singular event brought together, however briefly, the disparate group of notables pictured at the top of this page. Read on, Gentle Reader(s)...