Ok, I must admit that I am an Elvis fan. A few weeks ago Bryan and I had the opportunity to visit Memphis. No self respecting Elvis fan could go to Memphis without seeing Graceland. Our trip did have a much greater purpose than simply seeing Elvis, but that is another story.
Though I was interested to see the swarms of Elvis impersonators that must inhabit the Memphis area, surprisingly, I did not see a single one. However, I did see a couple of other interesting things at Graceland. For starters, there were quite a few groups of teenage girls visiting Graceland. Apparently, there was some sort of state basketball tournament going on in Memphis that weekend. I never expected teen aged girls to be interested in Elvis seeing that he died at least 20 years before they were even born. He was before my time as well, dying one year and one month before I was born. At least I was born in a decade that he was alive in.
You board a shuttle bus that takes you from the ticket counter across the street to Graceland. As you board the shuttle, they give you a headset that is programed to tell you about each room in the house. In the seat in front of us sat a mom of one of the teen aged girls. She was on her cell phone, apparently angry at someone. Waiting at the front door, she began to scream at whomever she was speaking to. She continued to yell as we toured Elvis' dinning room and living room. Come on, let's show some respect for the dead. This is a shrine we are talking about. Many of us had waited our whole lives to be there and we wanted to honor the king in peace. I felt terrible for the kids traveling with her. They had to be mortified! Bryan and I took our time and fell back out of the group so that this irreverent woman would not ruin my Elvis experience.
Thinking that the remainder of our tour would be pleasant, we progressed on through the home. As we moved to the grounds, we met another strange soul. This twenty something guy thought that he was some sort of philosopher. Everyone heard his "deep" thoughts on life as Elvis. He gave some poor soul a dissertation while in the racquetball court looking at the many awards. As we moved on, we were unable to get away from this guy. At the graveside, he continued to share all of his thoughts on Elvis and how he would be now and what he would change about the world. We ended up on the shuttle back with this guy, where I heard the most interesting of his theories. He says that Elvis was a republican and would have been the next president had he not died. He went on to talk about Elvis' political theories and views. I found this quite humorous since this guy was younger than me.
Anyway, I learned a lot on this trip, which included more than a trip to Graceland. That is all for another day though.
