The Day I was introduced to Elvis Presley

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Today’s Blog Post

The Day I was introduced to Elvis Presley

After reading the articles my mind flashed back to about 1956. What a rush! Whoa!

It was a Sunday afternoon in Regina. It was after church on Sunday morning in the springtime. We had been invited to another family’s home for Sunday Dinner. Everything about that afternoon was magical.

Their house was huge compared to the little place that we lived in on Elliott Street. They live in the Wascana Area – south of the main area of Regina and west of the Parliament Buildings – where other rich people lived.

We had come to visit the Zelkie Family. Their son Don was just a little older than me – probably going on 15 and much more knowledgeable than I was about lots of things. His dad was a Railroad Engineer and that was a good job in those days.

Don showed me the record player that they had sitting in their front room. He did it when his dad took my dad outside to look at something in the garage. It was the perfect moment to show me and share with me one of Don’s exciting discoveries. What a moment it was to taste something new… and mysterious. I knew it was because of the way that Don acted as lifted the new record album from under the other records.

Don looked over his shoulder to the kitchen and glanced out the widow to the garage to make sure he had enough time.

Carefully he extracted the shiny black record from its cardboard jacket and then placed it carefully on the turn table. He pushed the button and the record started turning with a very different sound coming out of the record player.

Our home had records as well but nothing like what I was hearing coming from that machine. The voice was so different from others that I had heard in the church world… and basically up to that point that was all we were allowed to listen to… or it was all that we had available.

My Uncles all made music but it was more Western in style. They played it on the farm in the East Room each Sunday that we came to visit.

From the record player came a new sound.

Don glanced at me as he played the record and then quickly at the kitchen and out to the garage again. We were apparently doing something at that moment that made him keep up his guard. He was on the watch for the danger of his dad returning.

His mom was in the kitchen preparing the last fixings for the dinner. My mom was with her. That was when Don’s mom picked up the sound and called out, “DON… what are you doing? I can hear that. Your dad is NOT going to like what you are doing!”

Don glanced nervously out of the house window toward the garage. My dad and his dad were still talking and he had time left to let me hear more. Don grinned at me and then continued listening to the music and the voice of the person on the record. Pure delight was registered on his face as he shared this moment with me.

I didn’t really know what was going on, but looking at Don’s expression I knew I should be savoring something of a forbidden fruit.

Don looked at me and explained, “The guy’s name is Elvis Presley. He sings hymns too as well as this popular stuff. In fact he attends church just like we do and has since he was a little boy – just we have.”

I couldn’t understand what that meant exactly. The music that I was listening to was not the kind that church had – it was better – much better – but I wasn’t sure why… except that Don was doing something that his dad was going to kill him for doing.

The back door latch made a sound and two dads entered still talking. Don quickly lifted the needle arm and lifted his prized record from the turn table… inserted it in its jacket and returned it to his hiding place under the other records. The two of us then left the front room to head off to his bedroom to talk.

Don explained a little more about Elvis and how much he liked him. To me it made no sense at all… except that an older boy was telling me his secrets. He told me how much the girls at his school loved this Elvis. That to me made no sense at all. Girls were sisters… and sisters were stupid!

That was about the spring of 1956.

In the fall of 1956 my dad took a very dangerous step and bought a TV. TVs were not something that everyone had. Some of the preachers in the church and specially some of the people like Don’s dad thought these TVs were from the Devil. And no one that attended church would have a TV!

Well after dad made that decision to buy it our lives changed completely. A whole new world opened to us.

On TV there was something broadcast from a far away place called New York. It was the Ed Sullivan Show.

It was during that first month of our having the TV that I saw this guy with a white sports jacket on. His name was Elvis Presley and I had heard the song before – on Don’s record.

People were screaming when Elvis apparently wiggled on the stage…but all you could see was his head, chest and sports coat. None of us knew what was going on because the TV cameras wouldn’t allow you to see what he was doing with his hips.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why Don’s dad Albert hated this Elvis so much. Christian guys like Albert were supposed to love people. He sure didn’t love Elvis. And Elvis sang old hymns as well as that other stuff.

In 1956, the fall, one of my uncles gave me some old radio parts which he told me still worked. I plugged it in and began listening to music – Rock and Roll in particular… and haven’t stopped.

Yesterday as I finished reading the sad story of the life of Elvis I pondered his life and mine.
When I was twelve he was 20. I was 14 when he was inducted into the U.S. army. His daughter Lisa Marie Presley was born the same year as my oldest daughter 1968.

On August 16, 1977 I had started my new task as a Minister traveling across Canada doing Youth Work for the head office of our church. That was the day Elvis died.

He was a very fat blob and his body was suffering from the abuse of many, many drugs. His family was gone. He was all alone in his huge Graceland home surrounded by everything that one could ever want… but had nothing.

The funny thing is that we call him “The King” or the “King of Rock and Roll”.

54 years ago this springtime is when I listened to that record with Don, watched out for his father coming back inside, and then scooted off to Don’s bedroom to listen to the new stories… and I was introduced to Elvis. That was so long ago.

Whoa!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/
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Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Marie_Presley