We stopped at the visitors’ center to pick up candles before we went to get in line. While we were there, I went to look at some of the flyers about Elvis week that were on a table. A lady from Arkansas was standing near the table. She showed me the cup she had gotten at the Rockabilly Café. She told me that if you were an insider, you could get free refills all day. I told her that we were insiders and flashed my VIP tag. She was a regular at Elvis Week. She told us that there were several years when her kids were getting started in college and money was tight that she wasn’t able to come. When I was talking to her, I was standing between two tables with Elvis information. A couple of women from Canada who spoke only broken English started asking me about the candlelight vigil. I think they thought I worked there. I was able to give them the information they wanted, going into details about what had happened in earlier years. I had shared this information with several people that we ran into all day. I was definitely an insider whether I liked it or not.
We had a good place in line during the candlelight vigil. The people behind us in line were a brother and sister from California. They seemed to be about my age. This was their first trip to Graceland. It was another situation where people scheduled a trip to Graceland not knowing they were coming during Elvis week. At the same time, they were Elvis fans that described this as a “Trip of a lifetime”. The couple across the rope from us in line were there for their 5th Candlelight vigil from Pittsburgh. The group in front of us were from Virginia and had also been to several vigils. One of the ladies had cute sneakers with Elvis decals on them. The interesting stories from the line this year didn’t come from these people’s stories but from the other activities going on. There was unusually pleasant for Memphis in August. You would think that the number medical emergencies would be fewer than in years past. The year that it was so hot that people were dying, I didn’t stay for the Vigil ceremony. I had seen too many people be carted off that year. I was concerned for my health. But not this year. It was really nice out. So I was surprised to see EMTs coming into the line during the vigil to tend to people. I had never seen them do this before. At one point, there was a fire truck and a paramedic vehicle at one end of the road where it was blocked off. I had never seen that before. In the line, I walked by at least two women that were being tended to by staff. That was not the only thing that was new during the vigil. There has always been the feel of a family gathering at the vigil. Everyone is nice. The temperature wasn’t hot to make people more on edge. But for some reason, a couple of guys in the line ahead of us got into a fight. One of the men hit the other and one of them left. It wasn’t a big scuffle but it was unusual for a candlelight vigil.
The crowd looked bigger than last year but smaller than the 5 and 10 year anniversaries. There seemed to be fewer flowers and tributes lining the walkway up to the meditation gardens. I had gotten a second candle when we walked through the gates. I knew that many years, one candle wouldn’t make it all the way to the gravesite. The candles that they gave us at the visitors were tall and skinner that any other year. They also gave me a cardboard circle to go around it to protect my hand. The candle they gave me at the gates was shorter and fatter. It was in a plastic candle holder. A couple of years back, Nick had one of these holders catch on fire as we were leaving the gardens. Nick and Tina didn’t get new candles at the gate and were almost out at we got near the meditation gardens. I swapped to my original candle and gave Nick the candle that I got at the gate. There was an old lady coming down a ramp from the gardens and it looked like she needed help walking down. I stepped up to hold her arm as she walked down. She said thanks and said she was about to spill her wax. I looked down at the plastic candle holder in her hand. It looked like that candle had completely melted and the wick was in a pool of wax in the middle of the holder. It looked like it could go up in flames any minute just like Nick’s had a couple of years before. Her husband told her she needed to blow it out which she did reluctantly.
When we returned to the street, we found Dean Z. and listened to him sing a bit more. It was during this time that I saw security escorting someone away from the crowd. I didn’t see what he had done but I think it was something different from putting bacon on the grave. They walked quietly beside him through the crowd and watched him as he continued beyond the barricades blocking the road. When we were looking at shrines in the road, I met a lady from St. Louis. I asked her how many years she had been coming and she said this was her 13th year straight. Exactly the same as me.
It was time for the insiders to return to Jackson. Before we left the property, we returned to the Rockabilly Café to get our picture taken in the John Stamos booth. When we got there, a lady was sitting in the booth waiting for friends. When she agreed to get up and take our picture, she told us that John Stamos had actually sat in that booth. I wonder about John Denver?
