I try and get pictures of interesting people each year and things that make that year different. In front of the visitors’ center they had the NASCAR car sponsored by Reese’s. They have a peanut butter and banana flavored candy with Elvis on the package and the car has the same artwork. I was taking a picture of it and this redheaded guy from England that talked liked Austin Powers came up and offered to take my picture with the car. He also wanted me to take a picture of him with the car. I talked to him for a while. He met Elvis at a show. He caught a scarf that Elvis had thrown into a crowd and he was getting his butt kicked by the crowd. He said that Elvis made them stop. He told me about all of these celebrities that he had met and pulled out a scrapbook with pictures of him and all these people. He was most proud of his Paul McCartney picture. He talked about being aggressive and getting in to see all of these people. When I mentioned I was from Jackson, we talked about Carl Perkins. He said something about George Harrison being close to Carl. He said that George was rude to him. He said George “spat at him.” At some point he said he had a website on the internet and I was afraid he was going to try and sell me something, especially when he pulled out his pictures. He never told the name of the site. After he left, I took a few more pictures of the car. I did this as much to try and sneak some pictures of the black lady that was looking at the cars. She had a 60’s retro blonde hairdo and was about to fall out the front of her dress.
Another person that had pictures was the lady at the Elvis tent with the buttons. She was of course a large lady with a vest that went below her knees. The vest was filled with buttons. I really wanted to get a picture of her but my priority was to talk to her. I asked her if she had made her buttons or bought them all. Most of them were homemade. She collected these buttons and wanted to wear something that would hold all of them. She made the vest extra long to take care of this. She said she no longer wears as many buttons on the back because when she hopped into the car, sometimes they would come undone and poke her in the rear. I asked her about the pin with the picture that looked like her as a teenager with Elvis. She said that was one of the times she met Elvis. The way she acted, I think she had other pins with pictures of some of the other meetings. I also got the impression that she had worn buttons even back when she met Elvis. I thought when she talked about jumping in the car; she might have been jumping in with Elvis. Judging from her personality, I don’t know if this would have been a welcome move. I noticed that several of the other homemade buttons had pictures of Elvis’ butt. They were rear view pictures of what I assumed to be Elvis wearing various jumpsuits. The thought did pass through my mind that these could be pictures of impersonators taken during Elvis week. When I was walking away from her, I asked her name and she told me she was “Buttons”. Her real name is Ann but everyone has always called her buttons. I saw Buttons several other times throughout the night. She is sort of hard to miss.
The closest thing to Buttons that I did get a picture of was the older lady with the cape. I first saw her when I was going for more water. She had an afro and this ankle length cape. My first thought was it is too hot to wear a cape like that. It was almost like a tent with her fuzzy little head sticking out. Next, I wondered what was on the cape. When I saw her later, I had my camera out snapping pictures of an infant in a jumpsuit and sunglasses with sideburns attached. I asked the lady if I could get a picture of her. She started walking across the parking lot. I thought she wanted me to follow her but I wasn’t sure. Next she turned around and held her arms out so I could take her picture. I went up to talk to her and ask her for a picture of the back of the cape. It turns out that she was from Italy and spoke virtually no English. I never even got a good look at the back of the cape.
I ran into some more people from Italy. They had matching black t-shirts identifying where they were from. I asked if had been at the 25th anniversary candlelight vigil. They were there and I told them that I had pictures of them at home. You see the same people from year to year and if you talk to them, they may even remember you. I saw the Elvis impersonator that looks like professional wrestler Bill Dundee and the Middle Eastern or Indian impersonator who identified himself as “Elvis Pompeii”. Before the candlelight vigil, I was walking down the street looking at various shrines that are set up on the street after they close it to traffic before the ceremony. I saw an Oriental or Polynesian lady that I had seen earlier in the day. I remembered the homemade top she was wearing from earlier because it had an Elvis stamp pattern that I don’t remember seeing before. This time I thought I recognized her and asked her, “Did I stand next to you in line during the Candlelight Vigil last year?” She asked me, “Where you wearing a shirt that your wife made for you?” Of course the answer was yes. She had her daughter with her this year that looked about the same age as my kids.
One of the things I enjoy is meeting people from all around the world. The people standing next to me during the candlelight ceremony were from New Zealand. They said it was winter there now and snow was on the ground when they left home. I met a guy from Paris, France that spoke no English and he was on his first trip. He held a banner that said “Elvis Forever” and a flag in each hand. There were the rockabilly fans from England. The lady had a red western shirt and a jet black ponytail. The guy had his head shaved on the sides and a ski jump shaped flat-top.
I spent more time with a plumber from Eaton, Pennsylvania and his grandson. They were going to eat at same time I was. I talked them out of eating at the Chinese buffet. I had bad experiences there. They stood next to me in line at the KFC and I let them sit at the table with me because of the limited table space. The KFC had no ice. They were out and weren’t getting anymore. The people working the counter were all black and were having problems getting everyone’s order correct. I was very polite and had no problems other than the ice. I don’t remember specific comments but the Pennsylvanian grandfather said several things that reminded me that white Northerners can be even worse than Southerners in their attitudes toward black people. His son was a plumber by day and an Elvis impersonator by night. He had a long, grey beard and remembered talking to me during a previous year.
On the way from the KFC, a car with three college-aged girls pulled up and asked me where Graceland was. I gave them some general directions to everything and told them where they would want to go if they wanted to see some real Elvis freaks. They were just passing through town and stopped out of curiosity. Earlier in the day, two guys and two girls about the same age in the parking lot just passing through and gave them similar directions.
Next to the Elvis tent, I ran into a couple of ladies with big Es on their heads. The Es looked like they were made from Styrofoam and covered with gold glitter. One lady was from Memphis and her sister was from Oklahoma. This was the sister’s first candlelight vigil. The big E is a yearly thing for the lady from Memphis and her husband. Their Es were covered with aluminum foil last year.
The lady that stood next to me during the candlelight ceremony was also from Oklahoma. She attends almost every year. She told me about where she parked and all the roads around Graceland. She talked about driving by Vernon’s house. I thought, “How do you people know all this stuff?” This lady knows where Elvis’ dad lived and the lady from Detroit knew when Elvis was in town. Is this just common knowledge for these people? She also talked about the fire engine down the road with Elvis’ name on it. All the firemen fans go and get their picture made there. This lady had been to the first 20 candlelight vigils. She also loaned me a Japanese fan during the ceremony. After the ceremony, we followed a guy in an Elvis jumpsuit to get out of the crowd. Before we parted ways, we were approached by people handing out tracts that said something about heaven on the front.
To get people to tell you about them, you have to be willing to share your ideas and experiences. I tell them about bringing James and about the girls not wanting to come. The lady from Detroit talked about our kids being the ones to keep this thing going. The Oklahoma lady said the same thing as she pointed at the crowd and said, “A lot of these people won’t be here very much longer.” I couldn’t help but think about the ladies on the stretchers and the people at the bridge. Even the old people in the Elvis jumpsuits can’t last that long. I tried to think of what these people had in common. They were all around when Elvis was alive and he was able to touch their spirit in a unique way. He was a special performer, a one-of-a-kind entertainer that set the standard for others and pushed the bar higher than almost anyone else will ever be able to reach. He had successful records, movies, television and concerts. But he was most successful in marketing himself and that success continues to this day. A child hearing him today cannot embrace the Elvis experience any better than you can have the candlelight vigil experience by reading this. The thing that makes Elvis Week a special time for the fans is that it gives them a chance to reclaim that feeling they had when they claimed Elvis as their own. If this is what the people at Elvis Presley Enterprises expect to keep the money rolling in, they are as crazy as the people with the walkers and oxygen tanks on the bridge. They may do better to start attracting the people who might poke fun at the Elvis image. There are a lot more of those people in the world. The changes they are talking about making at Graceland will probably make it more of an amusement park experience and less of a shrine. There will probably be more fake sideburns attached to cheap sunglasses and fewer real sideburns and authentic TCB sunglasses. But maybe they can keep something going for that young man with that gleam in his eye, a guitar in his hand and a song in his heart.
They said this year had the biggest crowd ever.