Graceland

I never understood Elvis. Sure he could sing, and of course there was the wavy hair and boyish charm. I missed him in his prime. My parents were too old. It was just bad timing. I was born in 1964. My parents enjoyed music, but only easy-listening remakes. So I thought “Love Me Tender” was originally done by Andy Williams and “Suspicious Minds” was written and performed by the Ray Conniff Orchestra and Singers. It took me well into my teenage years to understand that many of the songs I had come to love were not written for a full orchestra and female chorus. After hundreds of childhood listens, I only appreciated the original version of “Teddy Bear” after concerted effort at fact-finding and source-seeking.

I remember the day Elvis died. The only reason it remains even vaguely in my mind has nothing at all to do with the man himself or his effect upon me. Rather, I remember seeing my neighbor Marilyn on her back porch that day visibly upset. I asked dad, “What’s wrong with Mrs. F--?” and he replied with some unenergetic reply about how she must be upset that Elvis died, because she was a huge Elvis fan. He was pulling dandelions from the back lawn. That added at least an extra hour to the mowing, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just mow and spray, like the rest of the neighbors. But he always pulled the weeds. His lawn was lush beyond belief. I remember that a lot more than anything about Elvis.

And the subsequent boom of Elvis-mania never made sense to me either. The Elvis mystique eluded me. I didn’t own any Elvis records. I didn’t want any paraphernalia associated with the King. And I never gave a second thought to ever having an iota of desire to visit his home in Memphis. This never changed (although last year I did buy his CD of 30 number one hits, most of which I’ve heard, but still don’t know well enough to sing along.) Visiting Graceland was something that people from Tennessee or Mississippi did. It made no sense to me, a suburban St. Louis kid content with his daily doses of classic rock and strip malls.

But earlier this week, driving south on I-55 through Memphis to get to Florida, Keri spotted the billboard for Graceland. I barely noticed it. In fact, I ‘un-noticed’ it. I glimpsed a sequined Elvis with some slogan next to him and looked away. “Hey, let’s go to Graceland on the way back!” she stated. She was happy, giddy with the sun. I was in a great mood too, away from the grind of work and the complaining of kids for almost a week while Keri went to training in Pensacola. What did I care if we wasted a few hours and probably way too much money for a few hours in some cheesy tourist trap in Memphis? One thing I know with certainty about myself is that I’m not opposed to blowing some money foolishly on vacation. If you can’t do that, why bother going anywhere anyway?

“Sure, honey. Absolutely.” I only half-believed it when I said it. She often forgot where she puts her car keys, so I wasn’t about to believe she’d even remember wanting to go several days from now. Florida here I come! But her spontaneous comment planted some sort of spore of an idea, and the soil in my mind must not have been so barren as to prevent it from at least partially germinating. Graceland, huh? Well, I’d think about that after the sunburn and dolphin sightings.

Honestly, I thought about it off and on throughout the week. The interest, dare I say excitement, built incrementally each day of my overcast yet relaxing week in the panhandle. On the eve of our return, I googled ‘Graceland’. I was resigned on blowing the fifty six bucks admission fee and undisclosed parking charge in a relatively guilt-free fashion.

“What do you think about going to New Orleans on the way home, honey?”

What? This was more than just forgetting where she left her car keys. There was a little bit of hope-crushing happening here. Despite my best efforts, I found myself needing to press my newfound desire to tap into this Elvis-drenched Americana I avoided for forty four years. I told her the truth. “I was kind of looking forward to going to Graceland, though.” I held my breath, not like a tantrum, just that hopeful breath-holding you do when you’re unwrapping the final present under the tree and hoping it’s the new sweater you’ve been secretly praying for.

“Oh, honey, that’s fine.” She was still giddy with the sun, apparently forgot all about Graceland, and was just happy I remembered something that she wanted to do. Bingo! I get to go to Graceland, avoid the self-stereotyping of having it be ‘my idea’, and can quench my ever-growing curiosity of all things Elvis. I couldn’t believe it, but I was excited about going to Graceland.

Did Elvis realize he lived in the slums? Well, I was glad enough to get to the parking lot and even overlooked my usual guilt at paying double digit dollars to park in a ‘secure’ lot. (Could the pimply-faced kid with the oversized walkie-talkie hanging from the wasteband of his Graceland-issued khaki’s really keep my car safe from the prowling neighbors I suspected were lurking just outside the haven of asphalt I stood upon?)

It was Graceland, for God’s sake, and I was here!

There were no overextended waiting lines or throbbing masses of humanity to wade through to reach the starting point. We were greeted by twin jets, his and hers I supposed, etched with the letters “TCB” on the tailfins. “Takin’ Care of Business” was apparently Elvis’ motto. I could only imagine that while the pilots were TCB in the cabin, the King was TCB on a sequined-leopard skin couch in the back. That rascally King. I smiled and savored my newfound pride in this American legend as Keri and I walked hand in hand past the flashing electronics urging us to purchase the VIP tour package so we could have instant access to Elvis’ car and jet collection. Maybe the parking fee had taken its toll, but somehow my sanity crept back from oblivion and glimmered at the surface. “How about just the mansion tour, honey?” Her feet were probably hurting already from the trek across the asphalt, and she gladly agreed.

One overpriced souvenier photo later and we were in line for the shuttle. I donned my Graceland mansion tour headset and began hitting buttons like a madman. It was an automated tour, I began to realize, and the buttons corresponded with stops on the tour. By the time I stepped onto the shuttle, I think I was listening to something about Elvis’ living room. I hunkered down in the seat, smiled at Keri, and prepared for a ride through downtown Memphis, ready to soak in the sights on my way to the mansion. One minute later, we were there. It doesn’t take long to cross a street with armed guards stopping traffic for you. Wow, the King rules even from the grave.

Not wanting to waste a precious cent of my admission price, I desperately tried to figure out my headset, which was offering static-laden verbage about pressing the red button to return to the main menu. The red on my button was probably shared by the fingertips of visitors from the 48 contiguous states as well as some pygmies from third world countries, because it sure wasn’t on my controller. I began to panic. Keri was smiling pleasantly and nodding along with something unheard as she looked at the mansion. The eastern European family behind me were laughing and yipping phonetically in their native tongue, obviously able to understand the English directions better than I, an almost-English-major, could.

“HONEY, IS YOUR THINGIE WORKING?!?!?”

It was the headphone phenomenon. You know, with the headphones on you yell loud enough for you to hear over the noise in your own headphones, which is actually loud enough to call for lions across the Serengeti plain.
She hit me in the chest, which was her way of saying, “I love you, but knock it the hell off ‘cause you’re acting like an idiot”.

I shrugged and mouthed, “…whaaaaaat????” and pointed at my headphone thingie. She rolled her eyes and offered a nonverbal ‘harumph’, which was both an exclamation of exasperation and victory. She hit the red button -where’d that come from? – and I was miraculously transported to the front of the mansion, right where I was standing!

Now that was my kind of mansion. It wasn’t as gargantuan as I thought it would be. Apparently the King maybe started as just a Prince or maybe an Earl and then worked his way to the top, upgrading along the way. It was like a mansion version of suburban sprawl. Not so huge in itself, but it just kept going! The rooms were like walking through an antique store in which you couldn’t touch anything and if you haggled about buying something, some uniformed assistant would gladly escort you outside the mansion and hit your red button for you.

It’s probably impossible to leave the mansion without secretly wishing you possessed at least several of the things that were displayed tantalizingly behind the bullet-and-camera-proof plastic display windows. On the drive home, I kept fantasizing about the gold jumpsuit and the obnoxiously elongated white couch. Boy could I build a room around that.

But after we put a few miles between us and the King’s palace, I began to realize that TCB for me meant finding the nearest Chic-fil-a and hoping it had a clean bathroom.