The King: Today, Tomorrow and Forever In My Family

I wasn't even born until more than a year after Elvis Presley died, but I still can't believe it's been 30 years already.

And I really can't believe how nuts people still are for him. I've been reading some of the coverage of Elvis Week in Memphis (which this year, for the first time ever, includes a Graceland-sanctioned Elvis impersonator contest). There are some die-hard Elvis fans out there (one literally did die, in her trailer on a nearby campground -- it's sad, but you've got to wonder if part of her thought it was a fitting tribute).

I hesitate to call myself an "Elvis fan;" that title implies a bit more of a fervor than I've ever had for the King. I do enjoy his music -- fine, yes, and his movies too -- but I think what keeps me from being a true fan is the fact that when I think of Elvis, I don't gaze misty eyed into the past, wistfully wishing he were still with us; I usually end up giggling. And I blame that on my family, more specifically, my mother's side of the family.

It was an innocent enough beginning. The story goes that back in the day, when my parents were first married and living with my maternal grandfather, my mom and Aunt Shellie (who still lived at home) used to sit up watching late night Elvis movies, all the time telling each other, "I'm only watching this because you want to." I doubt either of them had any inkling then that a few sub-par movies would cause an Elvis explosion, the effects of which have touched not only the two of them, but their other sister (my Aunt Nancy) and the children of all three.

For years, my mom and Aunt Shellie sent each other every piece of inexpensive-enough-to-still-be-funny Elvis merchandise they could find. (Or, sometimes, simply altered their existing possessions to make them more Elvis-y, like when Aunt Shellie moved to California and my mom sent her car out to her covered in ads from the newspaper announcing a local event. When it arrived, all over it were newspaper clippings with phrases like, "See Elvis' Car! Elvis' Real Car!" Good one, Mom). A few items my mother received included a "find Elvis" keychain (filled with water and glitter as well as a small Elvis that you were supposed to find among the other stuff), a swinging leg clock and Christmas ornaments. Having all that kitschy stuff around was fun, and it was even more fun helping my mom look for kitschy stuff for Aunt Shellie, so my sister and I joined in the fun eventually.

Sadly, I didn't realize that collecting tacky Elvis merchandise wasn't funny for anyone I knew outside of my family and more than once wore an "I [heart] Elvis" tee shirt to school, a move that me a reputation with my classmates that probably still stands today. It didn't help, though, that I didn't care what they thought and throughout my schooling years took every opportunity to incorporate Elvis into my education, including making him the subject of my eighth grade term paper, making him a character in a short story I wrote that same year, making him a source in a spoof news story I wrote for my high school paper and insisting, when asked, that Elvis was alive and well, working at a sewing machine store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.*

The best -- and most lasting -- piece of Elvis merchandise in the family was the Velvet Elvis. I remember the night we bought it. We were at the mall -- my mom, my sister and me -- and came upon a kiosk of high-quality artwork, including this Velvet Elvis, which probably cost less than $20 but was still overpriced, at least for quality. But whatever my mom ended up paying for the thing, we've all gotten it back a hundredfold in enjoyment of this beacon of artistic wonder. Aunt Shellie received the Velvet Elvis as a Christmas (or birthday, or something) gift that year. But she didn't have it for long.

From then on, every time Aunt Shellie (who by then lived in California) and my mom sent each other any sort of package in the mail, or whenever they saw each other, the Velvet Elvis changed hands. Aunt Shellie would leave it underneath some towels in our bathroom closet; my mom would find it and sneak it into Aunt Shellie's suitcase...it became a game for them to find a spot to hide the Velvet Elvis where the other wouldn't find it until it was too late to secretly pass it back to the other.

The game ended when my sister went to college and took the Velvet Elvis with her. It hung in the window of her dorm room for a good long time and then passed to Aunt Nancy's son Rob, who hung it in his college apartment, whereupon it went to college with me. I had hoped to pass it along to Aunt Shellie's son Erik when he went to college, but for some reason (which I doubt is Erik's sensible and normal persona -- he's as much of a nutbar as the rest of us) it has sat for the past several years collecting dust in my parents' cellar.

But that doesn't mean the Elvis tradition has died. As a matter of fact, it's spread. One of the first Christmas gifts I received from my sister's then-boyfriend, now-husband was a lamp featuring a scene from Jailhouse Rock. When switched on, a mechanism inside the lamp rotates, hurling odd-looking shadows on the wall.

And I'm sure it's no great coincidence that the man I ended up marrying has rather long sideburns and an affinity for 50s music. We went to Graceland together last fall and had Elvis lyrics on the front of our wedding invitations.

It's actually a bit depressing how large this Elvis phenomenon is, even today. On our trip to Graceland, my husband (then fiance) and I -- although highly entertained by the huge amount of crap with the King's face plastered on it -- actually left kind of sad that the life of this man has been reduced to a $250 mug in the shape of his head. I guess I thought it was funny for my family but not for the rest of the world.

I wonder how Elvis would feel if he knew this is what his legacy had become. From what I know of him, I don't know if he'd think it was all bad, actually -- he was, after all, a man of excess (and excessively tacky taste, although perhaps we could chalk some of that up to the 70s). But however he would feel, this is how he is remembered in 2007 -- and I guess that's fine.

Or, as the King himself said, "that's alright, mama."

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*This theory came about on a trip I took to visit my Aunt Nancy in eighth grade. We went shopping for a sewing machine for her and met with a man who looked vaguely like what the King might now, had he actually retired into the sewing machine biz. I'm not even entirely sure now that it wasn't him, but whether he -- or, indeed, the sewing machine store -- is there today I have no idea.