There was a winter storm threatening the northern part of Illinois. Forecasters warned it could dump up to 12 inches of snow state-wide, all the way from the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan, and from the Wisconsin border down through Springfield.
We were headed home from a long stopover in Biloxi, Mississippi. Our original plan was to drive to Springfield, Illinois, stay overnight and make a stop at the Lincoln Museum before heading home. The museum was my history-buff husband’s idea. But, since reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals” I was just as eager to make the visit.
“I don’t know. I’m worried about the weather. What do you think?” I couldn’t blame my husband for his concern. We’d left home two and a half weeks earlier in an ice storm that turned the country byways, where we live, into an automobile skating rink that left many a truck and SUV littering the ditches on the side of the road.
Being a solutions person I offered, “Let’s skip Springfield for now. We can drive to Memphis and stay a couple of nights. By then the roads should be clear enough to make it home safely.” Besides, I reasoned to myself, this way we’ll have time to visit Graceland, something I’d wanted to do for over 30 years.
After we booked a hotel I suggested some of the things we could do with our spare day in Memphis. I mentioned Graceland and although he didn’t actually roll his eyes, I could tell he wasn’t really keen on it. “I should have seen this coming. Okay, how much does it cost?” He knew well the entrance fee, because a friend had suggested a visit to Graceland not one week before and given us all the details.
“I think the basic tour would run about 30 bucks a piece. Oh, and um, another ten dollars for parking.” Did I detect a sigh in his voice? “Well, sure if you want, we can do it.”
Mind you, my husband’s never been much of an Elvis fan. I mean I like Elvis okay but, I’ve never been a hard-core fan, like my husband’s kooky Aunt Elsie, who bought every record album and even “wall-papered” her bedroom with photos of Elvis she’d cut out of fan magazines. Still, I’d always wanted to tour his Graceland home, if only to see just what kind of rabid Elvis fans like Aunt Elsie still flock to his place.
So, I launched into planning a whole day, starting at Graceland early in the morning and ending with a late lunch at a popular barbecue joint, knowing that the better I planned things the less likely my husband would be able to wheedle his way out of it. I was now determined to get to Graceland, even if it meant I had to drag him “kicking and screaming.”
We’d been on a road trip that, so far, had taken us through 11 states. We’d listened to XM/Sirius radio most of the time in the car and I don’t recall having heard a single Elvis Presley tune, so it was just plain strange that as we set off to our Graceland tour “Suspicious Minds” was playing as we started the car. I looked at the radio and saw that it was set to the ‘60s station. After the song finished I tuned in the ‘50s channel and they were playing, “Always on My Mind” by Elvis. Weird, huh? Little did I know then just how weird things were about to get.
It was a cool morning, actually cold I guess by Memphis standards. We parked our car in the official lot across the street. It wasn’t crowded, perhaps due to a combination of the cold and early hour. The tour bus lot was empty. We passed about 20 or so cars as we walked to the ticket counter building. Amongst a few rental car license plates, I saw license plates from Alaska, California, Washington, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, and ours from Illinois. Later we’d find out that at least a few visitors that day were from overseas, like the young 30-ish year-old Australian man wearing an orange baseball cap who sat next to me on the mini-bus that carries visitors from the ticket/gift shop area across a busy street to the actual house. Or the young couple and their 4 year-old son visiting from Germany, who sat in front of us on the bus.
Upon boarding the minibus for the two-minute bus trip across the street, we were given a headset containing an audio description of the home. (Note: the two minute bus trip includes the distribution of the headsets and sufficient time for everyone to test the headsets and give a “thumbs up” as to whether they are in working order.) In that short drive banners lining the street that proclaimed, “Elvis Lives” caught my eye.
They dropped off our minibus of about 20 visitors at the entrance, where we were cautioned “Take all the non-flash photos you wish. There is absolutely no flash photography or videos of any kind allowed inside the home.”
We donned our headsets and stepped inside and thus our experience began. A visitor can opt to listen to the basic tour or at any point punch in codes posted throughout the home that give a more detailed version of Elvis’s career and life at Graceland. Directly in front of us was a white-carpeted staircase with a velvet rope barring anyone from walking upstairs. The audio says that the upstairs is "sealed off' and no one is allowed upstairs out of respect for Elvis. "It was “Elvis’s private domain.”
I look to the right and there is his living room and just beyond it a small music room with a grand piano. The living room also has a velvet rope keeping visitors from actually entering the room. There are signs instructing visitors not to reach or touch anything beyond the ropes. I take a couple of snapshots and move to the left. My husband taps on my shoulder and points to a wall switch just outside the living room. It’s one of those push button switches as opposed to a toggle switch. Out of the corner of my eye I see him take a snapshot of it.
I notice a security guard lower his head as if in concentration. He appears to be listening to into his headset. He then speaks into a tiny microphone near his neck. The same security person asks everyone to move to the next area, apologizing and explaining that there has been a problem.
The security guard now approaches my husband and begins talking to him. I see my husband nod, say something to the guard and then point to me. The guard directs a different security person towards me. The female security guard says “S‘cuse me, Ma’am, would you please be so kind as to come with me?” and begins to direct me toward my husband. It all happened so quickly. My husband and I and an additional three security persons are the only people remaining in the foyer. The security people don’t seem angry, but they do look serious.
A couple of other security personnel were quickly directing the remaining few visitors through and past the area of the kitchen and Elvis’s parents bedroom. I saw the young 4 year-old boy from Germany turn around and look back at me as his parents and he were ushered out with the rest of the group.
I look desperately at my husband with arched eyebrows, which is my “What in the world have you done now?” look. He gives a subtle shrug of his shoulders. A fifth security person stepped into the room. It was another female guard. She took a deep breath and said, “If I could have a few minutes of your time, please?” “Yes,” we said in unison. “Great,” she replied. “Please follow me.” As we walked single file behind her, she turned, smiled and said, “I think y’all are going to like this.”
And man, you are not going to believe what happened next....
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