Michael Jackson’s Death Harkens Memories Of A Final Elvis Road Trip
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This is the first time I’ve ever told this story publicly. I’ve only shared it with a few close friends previously. Excuse me if it’s a bit longer than my usual blog entries.
While I enjoyed his music, I never was what you would call a huge fan of Michael Jackson. Yet, his death on Thursday brought back eerie memories of Elvis Presley’s death nearly 32 years ago in Memphis, Tenn.
I was 19 years old at the time and my mother, crying, came down to the basement where I was playing my drums. She said Elvis had died, just a few months after we enjoyed his last concert at the old Chicago Stadium in person.
With both of us being huge Elvis fans, I surprised my mother with tickets to that concert to thank her for all the sacrifices she had made for me in her life, especially staying for so long in a very physically and mentally abusive marriage to my alcoholic father.
The next morning, the radio blared the news that the Presley family was going to open Graceland to mourners to pay their respects later that day. In one of the most impetuous decisions of my life, I picked up the phone, called one of my best buddies, Jeff Balcer, and said, “Hey, you want to go to Memphis to see Elvis?”
That was Noon. By 1 p.m., we were on our way to Memphis in my parents’ 1974 Dodge Dart. Eight and a half hours and 540 miles later – we pulled into a strip mall parking lot across from Graceland.
Just an hour earlier, we had stopped for gas as we crossed into Tennessee and I asked a state trooper, who was coming out of the gas station, how folks were taking Elvis’ death. I’ll never forget his response.
“Son, you can go out and drive 100 miles an hour and nobody is going to stop you. Elvis is dead.”
As Jeff and I got out of our car in that strip mall lot, we couldn’t believe our eyes. There were easily 10,000 people, probably more. Other than big crowds at Chicago’s Comiskey Park or Soldier Field, I had never seen such a huge non-sports crowd.
Folks were blocking two of the six lanes of Elvis Presley Blvd., the two lanes closest to and in front of Graceland. They were like us, expectantly waiting to pay their respects to The King.
Before we got in line, Jeff and I went into the 7-11 in the same strip mall and bought a couple of sodas and chips, a bit hungry from the long non-stop (except for gas) drive.
As we exited the store, an old four-door sedan – I think it was a Rambler or an Opel – slowly rolled past us as it prepared to drive back onto the street. Inside was a male driver and three or four young girls. We didn’t even give the car or its occupants a second thought.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, the driver spun his tires, peeled out and drove right into the crowd in front of Graceland. Many of the innocent observers were sitting on the pavement in the blocked-off lanes.
Before our very eyes, almost as if in slow motion, bodies began flying into the air as the sedan clipped off one person after another. Jeff and I ran across the street to see if we could help.
As you could expect, mayhem ensued. Police cars and ambulances screamed to the scene to help the injured, as well as the several fans that unfortunately didn’t survive. Jeff and I backed up against the gate that surrounded Graceland. About 10 minutes later, a police car pulled up to a stop in front of us and this big police sergeant reached in and forcibly pulled out what I recognized to be the driver of the car that plowed into the crowd.
“What the (expletive) is wrong with you, (expletive)?” he said, before grabbing the young man by the neck and slamming his head into the top of the squad car. “Get him the (expletive) out of here.”
Justice back then, especially in the South, didn’t care about personal rights. If you were guilty and caught, you deserved whatever punishment you got – and it didn’t make a difference whether it was before or during the resulting trial.
As the squad car pulled away, en route to Memphis Police headquarters, Jeff and I were suddenly aware of three individuals standing behind us, on the other side of the iron fence.
There was an older gentleman, a young woman probably in her late 20s or early 30s, and a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, all dressed in black, the color of mourning.
“What happened?” the young woman asked. I told her what happened, causing her to respond with an “Oh, my God” and then she started crying quietly. Even though it was dark, I was close enough to tell she had been crying previously.
The man spoke a bit with us, asked us where we came from, thanked us for coming, and the trio began walking back to Graceland.
Jeff looked as if he had seen a ghost, while I was without a clue.
“Do you know who that was?” he said with a shaky voice. I replied, “uh, no.”
Then it suddenly hit me. We had just talked with Elvis’ father, Vernon, as well as his ex-wife, Priscilla. The little girl, who hadn’t said anything, was obviously Lisa Marie.
A few other people that were near us came up to us and started talking about the conversation we just had with the strangers on the other side of the fence.
Jeff and I hung around for a couple of more hours. By 1 a.m., it was announced that viewing and visitation would be suspended and that fans likely would not get to do what they had traveled near and far – like Jeff and I – to see Elvis one last time.
We were back on the road by 2 a.m., headed back to Chicago. I’ve been on tons of road trips, but none like this one. In our own way, we had paid our respects to The King, and even though we never did get to see him one last time, we felt better for having done what we did.
The whole point of this story is even though I wasn’t Michael Jackson’s biggest fan, I can understand the pain and emptiness all his loyal fans are feeling and why there have been and will continue to be so many episodes of mourning and remembrance over the next few days. Nearly 32 years ago, I was feeling the same exact thing and experienced it first-hand.
Elvis was my generation’s Michael Jackson. And while they were so radically different, they both made millions of people happy with their music and individual personas.
I’ll bet they’ll have a hell of a jam session in Heaven coming up.
Posted by Jerry Bonkowski on 06/25 at 10:55 PM
