I was at work when I received a call from home. I talked to my wife for a little while and then my oldest daughter wanted to talk to me. She was about 4 years old at the time. We didn’t talk very long. As we wrapped up our conversation, she said, “Daddy, do you know what I want to watch when you get home?” I said “What” and she replied, “The Hideous Sun Demon.”
The movie Frogs was released on my birthday in 1972 when I was turning 10 years old. I didn’t see it during its original release. But I remember seeing commercials for it on TV and ads in the newspaper. All the ads for the movie featured a frog with a human hand hanging out of the mouth. This ad campaign has to be one of the all-time best for a movie. The movie isn’t as good as the advertising, but it is a fun nature-gone-wild movie. I probably saw it for the first time on TV on a channel that had a creature feature time slot. I liked it from the very first time I saw it, but I have come to love it over the years.
I loved watching television game shows in the early 1970’s. In 1972, CBS started showing The Price is Right, starring Bob Barker. This was an updated version of a successful show from nearly a decade earlier. Contestants guessed the prices of various products and some of the prizes they could win. I enjoyed seeing the attractive models who posed with the products being promoted. My favorite model was Anitra Ford. I found out a few years after this series started that Anitra Ford also appeared in several movies around the same time she was on The Price is Right. I would not see most of these until many years later. My favorite that had her in a primary role is Invasion of the Bee Girls.
It’s now or never
Come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling
Be mine tonight”
These were the words I heard being sung while I was standing at a urinal in the men’s room in the visitors center soon after I arrived at Graceland. But it wasn’t just Elvis singing. A guy standing at another urinal just down from me was singing along with Elvis. If I wasn’t at Graceland during Elvis Week, I would have thought this was unusual. But I see people singing along everywhere at Graceland. When I exited the restroom, I stuck up a conversation with the singer. Lou is from New York. This is his 6th time visiting Graceland and his 3rd Elvis Week. He has a TCB tattoo on the palm side of his left forearm. He’s there with his girlfriend Jen. He asks me for advice on good places to get ribs in Memphis.
My trips to the Candlelight Vigil have always been about more than people watching. Meeting people has always been more interesting than just watching them. I’ve always been willing to talk to people and ask them about their Elvis connections. Interesting people sometime have the most interesting stories.
Several years ago, I was in the locker room of a gym where I had been working out. A friend that I had not seen for several months came in and said hi when he saw me. His name is not Bill but that’s what I’ll call him. While Bill was changing into his workout clothes, put bandages over his nipples. I had heard of people doing this to protect their nipples from getting irritated by rubbing against their shirt, but I had never seen anyone do it. I didn’t think that much about it and sort of filed this away in my memory bank.
A few days later, I was back in the locker room of the same gym. While I was changing, I noticed a used bandage on the floor. I wondered if this was one of Bill’s bandages…
One year for Christmas, my mother bought me a copy of the album Why Can’t We Be Friends by War. This album has two hits, the title track and Low Rider. While I love these songs, this is an album that I would have never bought for myself. It had probably been out for a couple of years before I received it. That didn’t stop me from listening to it and it became a favorite. One of the highlights of the album was the first song on side 2. It’s an instrumental song that lasts for over seven minutes called Smile Happy. This song has become one of my go-to chill-out songs. It doesn’t put me to sleep but it has a calming effect on me to help me relax at the end of the day.
Going to the Mid-South Fair at the Fairgounds in Memphis, TN was a yearly trip for my family. In addition to the rides, we would also visit all of the buildings with a variety of exhibits. In 1977, we were going though one of these exhibit halls when we came up to a booth with Jerry “The King” Lawler. In addition to having one of the most popular television shows on Saturday mornings, Memphis Wrestling played to sellout crowds each Monday night at the Mid-South Coliseum, the arena also located at the Memphis Fairgrounds. Jerry Lawler was their biggest star. Watching Memphis Wrestling was a big part of my Saturday morning routine. While I had seen Lawler at live matches, this was going to provide a chance to meet him for the first time.
When I was in college, I was having a party in my dorm room. My dorm room parties were tame compared to my fraternity parties. I decided that we needed party games. I went to the local KMart and purchased a Pin The Tail On The Donkey game. While I was putting up the poster for that game, I remembered the Why Can’t We Be Friends album by War included a poster with a picture of the band. All members of the band were black except for harmonica player Lee Oskar. With his white man afro and bushy mustache, I thought he was Puerto Rican although he is originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. I hung the War poster on the wall for the party so we could also play Pin The Tail On The Puerto Rican. While we played both games, my new spin on this traditional game was a hit.
My first exposure to Dick Gregory was when I bought a book in the early 1970’s called Breaking It Up! The Best Routines of the Stand-Up Comics. Several years later, I picked up a copy of his album The Light Side: The Dark Side where he talked about his political career including a run for president in the 1968 election as a write-in candidate for the Freedom and Peace Party. Although I was a collector of comedy albums, this would be the only Dick Gregory album I would buy. Part of the reason for this was his albums were very hard to find. And even though this album was very funny, the political and social issues he discussed made it one that I wouldn’t listen to as often as my favorite comedy albums.
I was in Cub Scouts when I was in 5th grade. Our scout troop met in the gymnasium at the county elementary school located in Alamo, TN where I grew up. Because I lived in the city limits, I didn’t attend the county school, but I was familiar with the building because of various events I had attended there over the years. The gym had a stage at one end. Our meetings would usually start with some free play time in the gym while we were waiting for everyone to get there. There would be basketballs available so several of us would usually shoot if not organize teams and play. There were also kids just sitting around talking, running around, or doing any number of things to entertain ourselves. During one meeting early in the fall, I was with a group of guys playing around on the stage. I don’t remember what we were doing but I think we decided to move to the basketball court. I was lying down on the stage and decided to roll over to the edge, then ease off onto the court. As I put my legs over the edge of the stage, I noticed a hole in the left knee of my red jeans. For some reason, the stage in this gym had several bolts sticking up in what seemed to be random places. I had rolled over one of them and ripped a hole in my pants at the knee. Then I looked inside the hole and saw that there was a matching hole in my knee.