Elvis, Oh Elvis

My sister Faith and I find ourselves with four or five hours to fill in Tupelo, MS. This historic Southern city is a little over an hour from our Alabama hometown, Vernon. It was an infrequent destination for us growing up, but one that offered a bookstore and a slice of Vanelli’s authentic pizza. Today we are on a different mission; after a couple of errands, we set out to discover the charms of this cute downtown, and play tourists in Elvis’s backyard. 

The brick building lined Main Street `is a picturesque backdrop for our walking tour.  We start at the downtown visitor’s center and learn that next door is where Gladys, Elvis’s mom, brought him shopping, and encouraged him to buy his first guitar instead of the 22-caliber rifle that caught his eye. Faithy and I head straight for the counter marked as “the spot.” It looks like a regular hardware store, but for the books and memorabilia marked with Elvis’s handsome profile. “Take my picture,” I demand, and we spend selfie-centric time chatting to the Tupelo natives who ring up our postcards, magnets, and the doodads we’ll use to prove we stood in the King’s first footprints.

The nice young helper asks us if we are Elvis fans and I do a double take, unsure how to categorize myself on the Elvis-loving spectrum. Born the same year as my mother, and having completed his life’s work when I was just 13 years old, Elvis’s impact on my culture was a rocking and rolling certainty. It formed a background rhythm I didn’t even notice until it was removed, whose echoes I took for granted. I never grasped its depth until the day I heard an incredibly beautiful voice coming out of my radio. When the announcer said Elvis’s name after the recording of “Where No One Stands Alone”, I was struck with wonder. The vocal cords that gave us “Jail House Rock” and “Hound Dog” produced clear pure tones like none other. I remember gasping to my mom, “Oh my word, I had no idea Elvis had such a gorgeous voice.” I at last understood, there was much more to him than a hip rolling heartthrob in bedazzled jumpsuits.

I try to sum this up to my questioner with some lame sentence about his vocal quality, then change the subject to my college roommate’s mother having graduated high school with Elvis. I report how I saw the yearbook where he wrote, “To a very pretty girl,”—like she should envy my 2-degrees-of-separation from the Big E. She kindly raises her eyebrows in response, then directs us to a poster showing stops we shouldn’t miss.

“Let’s walk to all the sites we can and then we’ll drive to the Elvis Presley Birthplace for a proper tour.” We exit and take a left, snapping pictures of each other in front of Elvis’s Tupelo Murals and behind sculptures on the Elvis Guitar Trail. Across the railroad tracks we find the old Tupelo Fairgrounds and read all the historic markers about Elvis’s homecomings in ’55, ’56, and ’57. “Oh Elvis!” I gush breathlessly, as I reach up and take the hand Elvis’s Homecoming statue extends to me. I tell Faithy a story mom remembered of her friend standing up in a theater and pretending to faint when Elvis came onto the screen. We can’t help but giggle—this is what we remember Elvis for.

We drive the 2.5 miles from the hardware store to the birthplace, and park on the beautiful grounds. Inside the modern museum, we hear accents behind us in line. “Where are ya’ll from?” I ask over and over, “Michigan,” “England,” “Germany,” “Italy,” “Sweden,”—oh my word, it’s true. Elvis’s legend extends the world over!

Outside, we take our tickets for the birthplace tour and circle “The Walk of Life” to a tiny white building in its center. Some people might hide their humble beginnings, but Elvis seems to have embraced them by purchasing this little plot of land.  The shotgun house can’t be more than twelve feet wide. We walk into the front room and take in a simple bedroom then step through to the nearly unchanged kitchen his father, Vernon, built in the 1930’s.  I’ve heard many stories from my family about how poor was the world they were born into, but when I ask about the wallpaper and the tour guide tells me it replaced the original newspaper, I feel the desperate poverty that led twenty-one-year-old Vernon to forge a check to put food on this table.

We thank our docent and slip quietly out the back door into a warm October day. We still have time to walk up the hill in search of one more statue; I’m distracted by butterflies and birdsong. A few other tourists are taking pictures of the monument “Becoming.”  It’s a peaceful spot. Faith and I take pictures of each other, respectfully bridged between the boy Elvis shyly learning to play his guitar, and Elvis the icon, wings victoriously spread, head pitched back in triumph.

I can’t resist. I break the spell, reaching behind me and tenderly laying my palm on heartbreak’s chest. Elvis, Oh Elvis!

Your Turn: Were you alive when Elvis died?  What do you remember about that day?