Sidetracked

I was playing football in the street when my mom drove up in her Grand Am and rolled down her window.

“Elvis died today,” she said.

I knew this was big, but I think I said something fairly unprofound, like, “Oh really?”

I was, after all, just 8 years old. I still played with dolls. Football players, I should add. And Stretch Armstrong, if he counts as a doll.

As I get ready to attend this weekend’s Elvis tribute at the San Luis Obispo Little Theater, I’ve been thinking back on some of my personal Elvis memories.

Three in particular stand out:

• My mom’s childhood friend, Jane, used to go to parties at Graceland. I’m not sure how this was — I think her husband had some entertainment connections, or maybe Jane was secretly a backup singer — but she would always tell us stories about Graceland, along with the celebs she had met. (She hated Rita Coolidge for some reason.)

Coming from little Dyersburg, Tenn., neither Jane nor my mom had a lot of celebrity encounters — though they did grow up with a future NFL running back named Phil King, and my mom thinks she may have once dated Brent Musburger. So meeting The King made Jane a celebrity.

• Some years later I would learn about Bruce Borders, an Elvis impersonator, who was elected mayor of Jasonville, Ind., which was located somewhere near where I lived at the time. (Even people who lived near Jasonville didn’t know exactly where it was.)

Being both a mayor and an Elvis impersonator, Borders had an edge on the competition, garnering him spots on Letterman and other shows.

Today Borders is well beyond his mayoral term. But the “Mayor of Rock and Roll” (pictured above)is still milking the impersonation thing, doing gigs at retirement homes in places like Loogootee, Indiana, and Olney, Ill. (“home of the white squirrel”).

• My final memory is the day Elvis got me whacked. I don’t mean whacked as in mafia whacked — in which case I wouldn’t be telling you this story. I mean whacked as in paddled.

For some reason, in Indiana it was legal for teachers to paddle students in the ’80s. And for some reason, we called it “getting whacked.”
I was in art class, goofing around with this kid named Tim Johnson. Don’t ask my why — I didn’t even like Tim Johnson. He was weird. And he had a biscuit-shaped head.

But I heard him say something about the Elvis song “In the Ghetto,” and I’d been listening to “In the Ghetto” myself. One thing led to another, and we wound up singing the song in art class.

Apparently, art teachers don’t appreciate other artistic endeavors, because ours ended up whacking both me and Tim Johnson.

The embarrassment might have subsided that day, except that my grandmother’s neighbor happened to 1.) work at the school and 2.) walk by at the very moment I got whacked.

Let’s just say she wasn’t big on keeping secrets from my grandmother, who in turn wasn’t big on keeping secrets from my mother.

So as I watch “Blue Suede Shoes: A Tribute to Elvis, the Early Years,” I’ll no doubt think about Jane Thomason, Bruce Borders and the time (OK — the first time) I got whacked. One thing’s sure, though: If they perform “In the Ghetto” at the Little Theatre, I won’t be singing along.
•••
By the way, the “Elvis” shows sold out just after we published a story about it in Ticket. But the show will likely return this summer, possibly at a bigger venue. It is now the most successful in the theater’s Legend series.

–Pat P.

Posted on March 22nd, 2007 by Pat
Filed under: The World According to Pat