If I Can Dream, Let My Dream Come True - It's Elvis Week

           Dig out your diary and your memories of Elvis.  It's Elvis Week. Did you attend a concert/Live? Did you have tickets to the concert in Memphis that never happened?  Which albums did you buy?  Which singles? What were your favorite Elvis movies?  After all, Elvis and James Dean were the original "bad boys" or our era.  Elvis, though, gyrated his hips.

Do you remember where you were when you learned that Elvis Presley had died in Memphis?

                                              August 16, 1977.  36 years ago.  He was 42.
               
                 I was leaving Germantown Middle School, driving toward Poplar Avenue, just at Germantown Village Mall.  Dinstuhl’s Candy retail store was my first stop because Becky and I were good friends.  She had the inside scoop; her then-husband was a Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy and often had some security detail for Elvis Presley.
               Memphis went nuts. Screaming, crying fans threw themselves upon the walls of Graceland. Drive-by motorcades stopped traffic on Hwy 51-S, later renamed Elvis Presley Blvd.  Elvis never made it to his customary floor at Baptist Hospital- Central, a structure that has now been razed.  He died, ungracefully, alone, on the bathroom floor of his upstairs, darkened retreat at Graceland.  By that time, he was a tad overweight, known now as the 'Fat Elvis.'
               

         In 1977, he was still handsome, but not the Elvis we remember from his Army photo, or the hunky Elvis with that sexy, one-sided smile in GI Blues or Blue Hawaii. Even at his fluffiest, Talya would have driven from east Arkansas and paraded at a crawl by his hospital room, hoping to glimpse any movement, even as the sun reflected from the foil covering his windows.  Mary Ellen was certain I knew Elvis personally, and was privy to the inside scoop since I lived in Memphis and so did Elvis.
               When someone dies young, the person remains ageless in our collective memory; our Elvis will never be old, will never walk with a cane or forget the way home.  We’ll never see Elvis with gray hair and wrinkles and will never hear him trying to belt out his signature #1 Singles, trying to hit the notes or remember the lyrics, similar to the most unfortunate Glen Campbell, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.
             During Elvis Week, sightings are common. The Big Screen at the Orpheum features the Aloha from Hawaii Concert (January 14, 1973) and this year, the movie Viva Las Vegas will be shown at another venue. My favorite event featured The Memphis Symphony Orchestra in a pops concert with huge backdrop of Elvis video feeds. The musicians thrilled the audience with well-loved Elvis standards and Elvis’ gospel tunes, as Elvis himself crooned and moved about on screen.
              There is no separating Elvis from Memphis. Elvis will continue to stroll the streets and attend all Memphis Tiger athletic events, regardless of how often we are told that he has “left the building.”