Elvis

Growing up, my family was always into music.  There was either a radio on or a record being played at all times during my youth.  It makes sense to me since my dad spent so much of his life working at the radio station.  From DJ to salesman to general manager, he did it all.  Because of our family's love of music, there are a lot of musicians and musical groups that I can remember from my childhood.  The Beatles, Beach Boys, Michael Jackson, Neil Sedaka, Jim Croce, just to name a few.  Of all of the ones that I listened to in the 1970s, my favorite was definitely Elvis Presley.  I even remember my parents going to see him in concert at the Morris Civic Theater and telling us how they really did come on the loudspeaker at the end to say, "Elvis has left the building."

I don't really know how much Doug liked Elvis growing up, but I realized when the boys were in elementary school that the singer had become a big part of our family's listening routine.  Meg danced to his song "Devil in Disguise" and Cal even went through an Elvis phase.  Besides gelling his hair back and playing his music over and over, he wanted to visit to Graceland.  He didn't have to ask twice.  During his third grade year, we packed everyone up and made the nine hour trip to Memphis.  We all loved it so much that we decided to visit it again during Cal's senior year spring break trip.  Meg even talked my parents into taking a bus trip to Graceland this past December as she really wanted them to see the mansion. 

Last night Elvis fans heard some unfortunate news.  His daughter, Lisa Marie, had suffered a heart attack and did not survive.  I was really sad to hear that.  I thought back to when we heard about her Dad's death.  He was the first person that I "knew" who died.  A few weeks later, my brother would be the second.  I believe those two deaths being so close together and Lisa Marie's age and mine being relatively the same, I thought a lot about her over the years.  That increased when I saw her bedroom at Graceland.  It felt like I was walking right back into 1977.  I know that she had lived a hard life and had just lost a son to suicide.  I hoped that neither of those led to her early death.  Either way, it was sad to think about her death last night.  The one thing that made me smile, however, was when I realized that Cameron had wore his Elvis socks to senior night yesterday.  How fitting that our family was representing the King on the day that his daughter died.