I was about to begin my senior year in high school when Elvis Presley died on this day in 1977.
In fact, I remember that we had a special assembly of the members of the senior class at the high school in my hometown that day. Seems to me the assembly was in the late morning, and it ran for about an hour or so, but I could be a little off on that.
At any rate, Elvis hadn't died when I left my house that day, but he was gone by the time I got home. Now, how long it took me to get home, I couldn't tell you. See, in those days, I was dating a girl who was a year behind me in school — but her family was hosting a foreign exchange student who happened to be in the senior class. So I took the exchange student to the assembly for the seniors and introduced her to people until her head was reeling.
Then we returned to my girlfriend's home, where we found my girlfriend, her mother, her sister and her brother watching TV. Until that time, I had seldom seen a family that enjoyed TV as much as that one did, but watching TV in the middle of a summer weekday was really unusual for them. Ordinarily, weekday television meant game shows in the mornings and soap operas in the afternoons.
But I was a teenage boy who was in love. I was blind to just about everything around me. So I didn't give it much thought at first. I just focused my attention on my heart's beloved. But my attention soon shifted.
In 1977, we didn't have cable TV. We just had the three traditional networks — and each one was zeroed in on those almost iconic gates on Presley's property, waiting for the hearse carrying the King's body to emerge.
It was "breaking news" long before 24–hour news networks popularized the phrase. To that point in my life, there had been relatively few events that had been considered so important that all three networks covered them live — the Apollo 11 moon landing (and the launches of the manned space missions that preceded it), the departure of President Nixon (and the Senate and House hearings that preceded it) and (although I was too young to remember it at the time) the John F. Kennedy assassination.
I don't know how long I stayed at my girlfriend's home that afternoon. None of us could have been called Elvis fans, but we watched the news reporters, who rapidly ran out of "news" to report and descended on the crowd outside Graceland's gates, asking insipid questions. At some point, I left.
When I got home that afternoon, a similar scene greeted me. My mother was watching the news reports, and the screen showed the streets of Memphis lined with people of all ages, all colors. Mom wasn't close to being an Elvis fan, but she was transfixed by what was happening.
I don't remember anything special about the weather on the day Elvis died. I guess it must have been hot. It was mid–August, after all, and Elvis was in Memphis, which is about two hours due east of the Arkansas town where I grew up. I don't recall any heat records being set in the summer of 1977, but it would be a safe bet to presume that it was hot on that day — simply because it always is.
It probably wasn't as hot as it has been lately — and I'm not going to suggest that it's been nearly as hot as it was in the summer of 1998 or the granddaddy of hot summers, the summer of 1980 — but it's been hot enough.
Christopher Blank of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that a candlelight vigil proceeded as planned last night in spite of a heat index of 118 degrees.
The vigil drew 15,000 people. The P.R. director for Elvis Presley Enterprises said that was a typical turnout for the vigil.
Not bad, you say?
Well, to put it in perspective, Graceland attracts about 600,000 visitors every year. I don't know if it is open every day, but let's say it is closed on Sundays. That would mean that average daily attendance is about 1,900 people. If it is only open on weekdays, average daily attendance would be nearly 2,300.
And if it is open every single day — except Christmas, New Year's and Thanksgiving — daily attendance would be around 1,600.
The big events — the anniversaries of his birth (in January) and his death — could be expected to bring in more visitors than usual.
But does that explain why a candlelight vigil on a blisteringly hot summer night in Memphis lured seven times the typical daily attendance for the 33rd anniversary of Elvis' death?
In many ways, Elvis is receding into cultural history. His death may always be shrouded in mystery, but, if there is still a sizable contingent of folks who think Elvis faked his own death, they haven't been reporting many "sightings" in recent years.
I guess, if Elvis did fake his death, he's getting a little old to be wandering along highways and stopping in at convenience stores.
But his popularity endures. All you have to do is look at Graceland on a hot August night.
