Before I left town, I stopped off at the bank. I thought I recognized the teller as a lady that had gone to Lambuth when I was there. I decided that it was not her and that it could possibly be her mom or a much older sister. Definitely not someone my age. When she waited on me, she asked me if she knew me from somewhere. It turns out she was exactly who I originally thought she was. It also meant this lady was only a year older than me.
My ability to determine anyone’s age has pretty much gone out the window. Although I turned 50 this year, I imagine myself much younger. I don’t see the guy in the mirror as often as I see that guy that went to Graceland 10 years ago who had just lost a significant amount of weight and was in pretty good shape. All of this was running through my mind as I stood taking part in our first “encounter” of the day. As my friend Nick and I were walking to the visitor center from the parking lot, we ran into our first group of people wearing similar t-shirts. I asked who they were and where they were from. Their shirts said that they were part of a flash mob. They told us that it was taking place next to the Sirius radio booth in 30 minutes. We made sure we were there at start time. This was the first time I’d been present at a flash mob so my knowledge of them is limited to what I’ve seen in videos. It didn’t appear that they knew what they were doing. Lots of clapping but not much else. Pretty soon they started play the song “C’mon Everybody” from “Viva Las Vegas”. This is one of those songs where they give you instructions on how to dance. It’s one of the best parts of the movie. Anyway, people in the mob started dancing together or at least trying. There were people from everywhere in the mob. One of the ladies that had told us about this was in a motorized cart. She couldn’t really dance but did the hand and head motions. It was during the dance that I noticed she was wearing blue suede shoes. Earlier she told us they even had one lady in the group from Transylvania. It was while I was watching the flash mob that I thought about the age of these ladies. Most of them are my age. Not necessarily exactly my age, but most of them are right around my age. Even blue suede shoe lady. I wonder how much older she is? Or is she actually younger than me? There was a lady gyrating way too much with a Loverboy-type headband. I can’t help but look at her and think she is way older than me while the reality of the situation is that she is probably a little younger than me. Anyway the song ended and the mob broke up. The participants passed out beads. No one had to show anything to get them and I ended up with two strands.
The first thing that I noticed about this year’s celebration was that the crowd was significantly bigger. The past few years, the parking lot at the visitor’s center had been about half full. I’ve used that as a gage to compare the crowds from year to year. This year, we had to park at the back of the lot. It showed this event is not dead yet. I think that the people who run Graceland were a little overwhelmed with the number of people who showed up. I don’t remember crowds this large since the first couple of years that I went. They seemed to have plenty of souvenirs on the shelf and plenty of extra registers to check out at. The selection wasn’t as deep as usual. Last year I purchased a really nice glass with the Elvis Week logo. I was looking for one for this year but couldn’t find one. Only champagne flutes. I really like this year’s Elvis Week caps, but they have a really plain design. My purchases were limited to a cap and a shirt. The shops were really busy this year. I talked to a lot of people who were there for the very first time. When we were in the parking lot, we saw a huge variety of states on the license plates on the cars. But there were a lot of people who didn’t show up in these cars. We talked to groups from England, Belgium, and Chile that were huge. When we asked them how many people were in there group, 200+ was a typical answer. I think it was the guy from England that said there was a second group that had 250 people. For many of them, it was their first trip to Graceland.
While this was the first year for me to have an iPhone at Elvis Week, I wasn’t able to get pictures of everyone that stood out in the crowd. There was the guy in a Molson Canadian baseball jersey that was open down the front. His chest was wet. I couldn’t tell if it was from sweat or if he had been pouring beer down his chest. It was disturbing and there was no casual way to get a photo. There was a guy with a homemade t-shirt that had a picture of him and an Elvis impersonator. I talked to him briefly. He was there from San Diego. He was there just to watch the tribute artist contest. He introduced me to his friend, a lady from Maryland. I don’t know if he had picked her up there or if it was a planned meeting. Anyway, they were very pleasant and seemed more normal that a lot of the people you encounter at Elvis week.