NOTE: They used to talk about Stagedoor Johnnies, the men who hung around theaters with flowers and candy for the showgirls. Then women and girls got liberated and got horny, and they called the starstruck ones groupies.

But there are some of us who call ourselves by another name. We are drawn to a special class of classy ladies, to those mature beauties who appreciate a man who appreciates a vintage affair. We call ourselves the silver surfers. And this is one of our stories.

Alan D., Minneapolis

I was just about to enter the restaurant for lunch with some friends when my pager went off. The display was flashing five asterisks. I made my apologies and got back in the car, dialing my cell as I pulled out.

The local paper calls me "the doctor to the stars" in their gossip column, but all that really means is that I treat a lot of sore throats and other minor ailments for entertainers coming through the theaters and concert venues here. It's not like I'm the personal physician to Prince, or even those guys from "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

There aren't very big fees involved and I have to agree to be on call virtually 24/7. But it makes for a nice change from my regular practice, and I get a kick out of meeting celebrities.

When I punched in the phone number that night, I didn't expect much. I hadn't checked the paper's listings that morning so I wasn't sure who was in town.

The call was from the Metrodome, which confused me. I thought the Twins were in town; they've got their own team doctor. Besides, I don't do sports injuries.

"And I don't do singing injuries," Dr. Maxwell told me when I got through to him. "Seriously, Alan, I'm sorry to bug you with this, but my malpractice coverage is specific about limiting me to the players and coaches here except in cases of emergency. I don't think a chest cold would qualify."

"Chest cold? Can't they just give whoever it is some Dayquil and a shot of steam? How serious can a chest cold be?"

"I don't know, Alan. I don't even know if it is a chest cold; they won't let me near her. But this is some chest. You'd better get down here and see for yourself. The game tonight's on national TV, and they want the anthem to be sung, not croaked."

At the dome, I flashed my credentials and was quickly directed to VIP parking and ushered into a small, well-equipped examining room. Dr. Maxwell showed me the layout and then excused himself; one of the relief pitchers had a suspicious tenderness in his shoulder. I took off my sport coat, checked my supply of likely medications, and perched on a stool. One thing about celebrity patients: Somehow, they make their doctors do the waiting.

This patient walked in already talking a mile a minute in a drawl so sweet and thick you could spread it on toast.

"My gosh, Doctor, I don't know why they had to haul you all the way down here just for little old me. I told 'em a little honey and maybe a sip of some smooth Kentucky bourbon and I'll be singing my cotton-pickin' heart out like always."

I had to admit her voice seemed in good shape, with perhaps just a hint of a rasp. But I had come all the way down, so I asked her to sing a bit for me. She launched into an up-tempo number sounding like a bullfrog on helium. It was painful just to listen.

I stopped her and had her get on the examining table. I started running through some basic stuff.

The truth is I quickly confirmed what I'd guessed when she started singing. She didn't have anything serious. Didn't even have a cold. Just a little spasm of the vocal cords that a little massage or a hot compress could fix.

I told her as much, and she got on her back so I could rub her neck. It only took a minute or two. Most of the time people close their eyes when you do that, but she looked right into mine. It was the most disarming, bewitching stare I'd ever run into. I had several more thoughts inappropriate to the doctor-patient relationship.

But I finished the massage -- looking at a poster about kidney stones on the far wall as distraction -- and the croak disappeared. I warned her to rest her singing voice for an hour or two, but assured her she'd be fine by game time.

"Well, shucks, Doc, that's just great. You're a regular miracle worker. Hey, I don't want to take advantage of you or anything, but could I ask a favor? I've been on tour so long I haven't seen my doctor at home in ages. 'Bout time I had a real check-up. Any chance you could check me out?"

Actually, I had been checking her out since she walked in the door. But I am a professional. I pointed out that a full physical includes blood work and other things I wasn't prepared for. She said she still would like me to do what I could.

So I found myself saying "All right, Miss Parton. Will you take off your clothes, please?"

And you wonder if all those years in medical school are worth it?

Dolly batted her half-inch eyelashes. "You sure are a thorough fella, aren't ya?"

Abashed, I started to tell her I could do most of the exam without having her disrobe. She stopped me with a laugh.

"I ain't complaining, Doc, just commenting. I like a guy who don't mess around. Much."

She peeled off her clothes without a flutter of embarrassment, and with a bit of flair. She saved her top for last, turning away from me as she unbuttoned it. She stayed that way as she tossed it onto a chair and started to reach around to unsnap her bra. Then she paused.

"Darn it," she said, hands stopped halfway around her back. "Could you give me a hand with this contraption, Doc?"

Ever the gentleman, I did.

She turned toward me and it was like coming to the crest of a hill and seeing the glory of Rome before you. I'm no stranger to beauty or dazzling bodies, and Dolly wasn't your standard package of pulchritude. Her body looks bit off balance -- but, then, it would have to be, with that stunning superstructure.

Super it was indeed. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to her bra size; I would think you'd need a calculator to do that. You've heard of peach-sized breasts, or grapefruit, or cantaloupe? These were a whole fruit basket.

At that size, of course, they couldn't be called perky. They did sag a bit under their own weight.

But these were not those udder-like bags some women get. Dolly's tits might need a little support, but they were still magnificent mammaries.

"Hey, Doc!"

Her voice called me back from my reverie.

"You can put your eyes back in their sockets. They're real, all right."

My cheeks burned red. I started to apologize but she cut me off with a smile.

"I was just kidding you, Doc. I'm used to it. Heck, it's like a skunk complaining if people stare at his stripe. If he didn't have it he'd just be a stinky old squirrel."

She put a hand under each mound and lifted. The nipples, thick buttons centered in brown haloes bigger than my palms, pointed straight at me.

"But they are real, see? Go on, touch 'em. You're the doctor!"

I started to reach up, but I caught myself halfway. My hands were cupped. Not professional. I flattened them and returned them to my side.

"I will have to -- er, examine them -- your breasts (my cheeks felt like hot coals) -- but, first, let's get a few readings. Could you hop up on the table?"

Oh, what a hop. "Jiggle" doesn't begin to describe what her breasts did. And "erect" doesn't begin to describe the condition of my cock. I turned away from her, fumbling with some equipment on the wall. "We'll start with your blood pressure," I said.

As I turned back to her she was grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Golly, Doc, did I have to get naked for that?"

She had me there. I swept the room with my eyes. "Of course not. I'm sorry. I'm sure there must be some gowns around here... somewhere."

I opened a drawer at random and pulled out a flat bag. "This looks promising." I flipped it over and shook.

A cascade of small, square foil packets tumbled onto the countertop and spilled onto the floor. Through the spread fingers of the hand that flew up to cover my face I read the word "Trojans" boldly printed on the shiny packets.

There was a high-pitched, musical giggle behind me. "Hot date tonight, Doc? Don't let little ol' me keep you."

I raised my eyes to the ceiling, but there was no chance of divine intervention to save me from my embarrassment. At that point I would even have welcomed a lightning bolt of retribution for my past sins. All I saw was a wispy cobweb in one corner.

"Sorry, Miss..." I began, still looking away.

"Gosh darn it, Doc, call me Dolly. And don't bother 'bout a gown. I guess you've seen everything there is to see by now."

"All right... Dolly," I said, and began the examination. I went over some of the same things I'd started with, just because there's a routine to a physical and it's better to go through it the same way each time so you don't forget anything.

But this examination was like none I'd ever done, anyway. Oh, I've seen more than my share of beautiful naked women. But there was so much of Dolly.

She kept her big, blonde wig on the whole time, for example. Not unheard of when you're dealing with a star. But it meant that when I held the stethoscope to her smooth back to hear her cough, I had to wend my way through a luxuriant tangle. And whatever I did -- tap a knee, check blood pressure, inspect her ears -- also included a changing view of those awesome monuments. It was a bit like wandering through a city and constantly finding as you turn corners that you're confronted with another perspective of its sole skyscraper, visible for miles and all the more noticeable for the way it rises from such a flat plain.

When, at last, it came time to touch her breasts, I had to fight off the odd vision of my hands disappearing into them, sinking into their pillowy depths as though they were made of dough.

Quite the contrary. As I palpated them, I noted that they had retained a surprising amount of youthful firmness. And they were definitely not fake. Not a bit.

In my years of practice, I have encountered all manner of mammaries. Round ones, pointy ones, saggy ones, flat ones. Artificially enhanced ones of all dimensions. But never a pair like Dolly Parton's. They deserve to be the subject of their own version of those old vaudeville posters -- the ones that were all fancy type describing the acts in hyperbolic terms:

STUPENDOUS,

the sign would say,