Frozen in time

Monday, February 28, 2011

MARION, AK — It rained heavily through the night last night, so when we went to catch our bus for the tour of Memphis and Graceland, we wore our rain jackets, but it stayed dry all day. What it did not stay was warm. As the day went on, it got cool and then downright cold – it hit 37 degrees, after a summery 76 yesterday!

Our tour took us to see the sights of Memphis in the morning and Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, and related museums, in the afternoon. First we visited Beale Street, the vibrant bar-and-music part of town. A. Schwab’s was an old general store with worn wooden floors and counters where you could still buy embroidered handkerchiefs, plaster piggy banks and belts up to 80 inches long.

Our next stop was the Sun Studio building where Elvis cut his very first record. The owner gave a lot of fledgling artists a helping hand, including Charlie Pride, Jerry Lee Lewis and other rock-n-roll greats. We also saw the Pyramid, which is a former sports arena, the Cotton Exchange, and the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The famous balcony bears a white wreath at the spot where he died. A Civil Rights Museum has been built on to the motel, but we were not able to go in and see it.

We passed the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, a huge facility that cares for kids no matter what their financial means may be, and conducts research into children’s diseases. It was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas, whose body is entombed with his wife’s in a garden on the grounds.

We had a leisurely lunch at the Pork With An Attitude restaurant back on Beale Street with Barb and Janice, the two other full-day tour participants, who hailed from Australia but were probably the most-traveled people we’ve ever met! We asked where they hadn’t been, and they replied “Antarctica”!

Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, is a gracious, pillared building set back from the road with a curved driveway and wide lawns. While some might call it a mansion, it was really just a large home with some opulent decorations, like a 15-foot white sofa in the living room set against a stained-glass doorway of brightly coloured peacocks that led to a smaller music room with a baby grand piano. The rooms reflected an eclectic decorating style of the sixties, including a family room with tiki-style carved wood furniture covered with striped fake fur, green shag carpet on the floor and ceiling, and a fake stone wall with trickling waterfall at the end of the room! We wore headsets that provided ongoing descriptions of each room, including the raquet-ball room where each of the high walls was completely covered with platinum records of dozens and dozens of hit songs Elvis had recorded and sold in the millions.

Outside in the Memorial Garden were the graves of Elvis, his parents and grandmother and a small memorial plaque for his twin brother who died at birth. All around them were wreaths and flowers from around the world.

The museums, displaying his cars, clothes, movie memorabilia and tributes were all on the opposite side of Elvis Presley Boulevard, so Graceland itself was separated from the kitsch. What struck us was the evidence of not only his prolific talent and output from a show-business viewpoint, but also his tremendous generosity. One wall had 40 cheques on display, signed by Elvis to charities and individuals, each in the amount of $1,000 — which at the time represented a considerable sum. He was known to give away Cadillacs to complete strangers who happened to be in the car showroom at the same time he was there (late at night to avoid crowds). He was presented with a huge plaque displaying some 50 charities and causes he had supported. We left with a new respect for an individual who had a humble start, achieved greatness, but remembered and cared for others.