If he were still alive, Elvis Presley would be celebrating his 80th birthday today, and you can’t help but wonder what he would be like and what he might have achieved had he not died young at 42 in 1977.
That he passed so early in life is tragic on many levels, not the least of which is that our last living images of him are in the garish stage costumes, complete with sequins covering his ubiquitous jumpsuit and their bell-bottom pants cuffs and ridiculously large collars. Then, there was the matter of those sideburns.
Of course, I doubt any of us would want to be remembered as we were dressed or groomed in the 1970s, but in Elvis’ case it is particularly unfortunate.
I never met Elvis, although anyone from Tupelo feels some kinship to the city’s favorite son.
This was particularly true for those of us who grew up in East Tupelo where all the poor white folk lived and struggled. For us, Elvis wasn’t from Tupelo; he was from East Tupelo and a singular point of pride for a part of town the more affluent folks on the other side of town generally avoided.
There were quite a few Presleys living in East Tupelo when I was growing up there, and most of the people Elvis stayed in contact with from his old hometown were from that neighborhood, too.
As a boy, I would often hear rumors that Elvis was in town, visiting old friends and relatives. Those reports sent us East Tupelo kids scurrying to our bicycles. We would roam that neighborhood, hoping to find him, confident that if we did, he would give us a Cadillac.
His generosity was well-known to us all. But we never did track him down on those alleged visits and, thus, never did get a Cadillac.
In those days before his death, Elvis’ hometown wasn’t much of a tourist attraction. The little two-room shotgun house he was born had been moved a few blocks from its original location to a few acres of city-owned property at the foot of Old Saltillo Road where a Youth Center, baseball diamond and public swimming pool were built. Like most kids in East Tupelo, I spent a lot of time at Elvis Presley Park.
That changed abruptly on Aug. 16, 1977, the day Elvis died.
I had just graduated high school and had a summer job at the JC Penney Automotive Center, where I pumped gas, fixed flat tires and did oil changes.
I didn’t learn of his death until I got off work that Friday afternoon and was driving home. As I passed his birthplace, I noticed someone had placed a wreath of flowers on the door on the little house, which I thought odd. It wasn’t his birthday, after all. When I got home, the news of his death was all over the TV.
What followed was pretty much chaos. Thousands of people from all over descended on Elvis Presley Park. It was the beginning of the Elvis Tourism Industry that still thrives today in Tupelo.
When I was a kid, there weren’t any Elvis celebrations, monuments, festivals or walking trails in town. Now? You can’t chunk a rock in East Tupelo without hitting some Elvis-related object. Festivals and celebrations abound. He has proven to be far more popular in his hometown in death than he was while he was still alive.
Tupelo has the distinction of being the first city to be connected to the vast Tennessee Value Authority electrical grid. But it’s pretty hard to sell tickets or merchandise based on that.
So it’s Elvis and Elvis all the time in Tupelo.
He’s been driving tourism in town for close to 40 years now.
But still, I wish he were alive today to celebrate his 80th birthday and wish there was the possibility, however small, I might run into him and wind up with a Cadillac.
He was just that kind of guy, you know.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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