Happy 79th Birthday, Elvis!

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Elvis Aron Presley
Happy 79th Birthday!

 January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977

“Before Elvis, there was nothing.” - John Lennon

Today, I went to lunch with one of my dearest friends who is old enough to have actually seen Elvis in person while he was filming It Happened at the World's Fair in Seattle. We settled into a booth at Carino's, ordered Coke products, and when the waitress brought them, we clinked our glasses to the King of Rock n' Roll. It's probably crazy weird for people to go out to lunch and celebrate Elvis' 79th birthday, but I can live with a little weirdness. Lynn and I love Elvis. She loved him first (obviously), but she passed that love on to me. And sitting there, in the restaurant, talking about our Bible study and about Elvis, made me so happy and warm inside.

For a Si/Fe user like me, life is memory. Today, after lunch, I packed up all of my Christmas decorations from my room. I plugged in my Elvis CD, and just set to work for two hours. Each item has some memory attached to it, either when I bought it, or who gifted it to me, or even who made it. Each one is precious and makes me smile.

Then I had a choice to make. Did I want to put up my spring decorations in pinks, lavenders, and blues? Or, did I want to rummage through my numerous boxes in the basement for my "retro" decorations? The retro won out. The space above my bookcase is now a sort of homage to Elvis Presley and James Dean. I've got dolls for both of them, Elvis in Blue Hawaii, and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, my cute teddy bear in the red poodle skirt, my two battery-operated candles, an Elvis bobble-head, my Love Me Tender tin heart from Valentine's Day several years ago, and little red paper hearts that Lynn and I collected after our last Michael Buble concert (the one where we met him!). Topping it off with my I Love Lucy daily calendar and my brand new Phantom of the Opera snow globe was perfect. Red is the color that ties the display all together, even though the fandoms are vastly different. I look at that display, and I see me.

This is all to say that I love Elvis. There was nothing more therapeutic in the world today than celebrating his birthday with one of my dearest friends and then putting up Elvis decor in my room.

Happy Birthday, Elvis. I'm sorry I never got to meet you or see you in concert. If I thought I was nervous meeting Michael Buble, I can only imagine how nervous I would have been meeting you! But I love you, with all your ups and downs, your flaws and perfections. Thanks for giving us music as we know it today, for blowing a hole in the music industry and opening our imaginations. You're still awesome!

3 comments

  1. Happy birthday to the King of rock 'n roll!

    My dad is an Elvis fan, though he never managed to go to a concert (living in the middle of Iowa farm country will do that to you). When I was little, I used to get out all his Elvis records and read the backs of them, look at all the pictures, and listen to the only one he let me hear at that time, a Christmas album. I thought Elvis was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen, and I loved that Christmas album so much. When I got to be a teen, I fell in love with '50s and '60s music, and although my musical heart now belongs to Bobby Darin, I still have such a fondness for Elvis. I even have a couple of his movies, Flaming Star and King Creole. When an Elvis song comes on the radio, it never fails to make me smile :-) Just like this post!

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