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« Main Page « Experiences « Return Forward Part 2 »
Accomplished Dreams - Visit to
Tupelo and Memphis
I had a dream for quite a while... the dream of seeing Elvis
before my eyes, talk with him, and listen to the story straight from his
mouth. Well... but that was really just a dream. I knew that would be
impossible forever. So, I began to dream if it would be possible to visit
his house, the place where he had been born and all the other places related
to him. It was possible. I just needed a good spare of will and save very
hard. Yes, it would be difficult, since in the previous year I had bought an
apartment completely by myself and I didn’t know if the money would be
enough. But God was on my side, I had enough money...! And I wanted to be
there during the 20th Anniversary of his death. I knew it would be something
unforgettable and big. My traveling
companions were Sandra Raquel and Lu Ribeiro, two people that I’ve met
through our Portuguese fan club. When we found out we all shared the same
dream and the same intentions, we decided to do this trip together. For me,
everything started from November 1994 onwards, when I started saving for the
trip in August 1997. I inscribed myself at the Arena Traveling Agency (the
agency that deals with the trips for the English fan club) in 1995 and kept
on contacting them to deal with everything necessary for my journey. In
1996, Sandra and Lu joined me and I started to take care of their trips,
too. After many joint adventures, the time went by and the day that we most
looked forward to was nearer and nearer - that day was the 8th of August.
Index
Gatwick Airport
Our plane to London was at 4.55 p.m. At 3 p.m. we went to the
airport, thrilled and hopeful. At the airport, a friend of Sandra arrived to
say goodbye - Lena - and I was really surprised when I turned around and saw
Ana and Paulo. Ana had told me that she had to go to the dentist on that
afternoon and I believed her. After all, they had come to say goodbye. Lena
took several photos of all of us, mainly of Lu with her magnificent bouquet
of 20 red roses that she planned to put on Elvis’ grave. We stayed there for
a while, but then we said goodbye and we checked-in. We entered “our” plane
of British Airways with Gatwick-London as our destination. The name of the
plane was funny - Mistress Quickly. Everyone was picking on us, since we
were wearing the same T-Shirts and the same pins. Sandra’s father had made
some special and unique pins based on a drawing by me. So, noone had pins
like ours. Many people thought we were going to attend the big concert in
Wembley. Little did they know...! The flight was a bit shaky. Let’s say that
the cups and platters jumped a little bit. We had to travel with our
seat-belts always fastened. I started wondering if it would be difficult to
find Jeane at the airport. Once again she had decided to meet me, traveling,
for that purpose, from the north of England, just to see me. I missed her a
lot, since the last time we had met had been in October 1993.
Already in our rooms, Jeane surprised me with something that
I wasn’t really expecting. She asked me, “Do you have enough room in your
suitcase?” “Why?” I asked. “Because I have a book here that I would like you
to keep.” And then she showed me a book by Sean Shaver, one of his most
famous ones,
Just shortly after this sad incident, we saw Kathy. She had a
blue jacket on which exactly matched the color of her eyes - gorgeous! She
was distributing packets with polo-shirts and I immediately went to talk to
her. She has terribly nice and I had never seen her before. As I had already
attended two festivals organised by the English fan club in England, I was
hopeful to get a guide that I already knew and someone who belonged to the
club’s staff. But I was happy with the fact that she was so nice, which was
the main thing. The polo-shirts looked quite “normal”: they were white and
had the letters Elvis embroidered in red with the symbol 20 Years After in
the background in blue. Nothing very special. We walked around killing time
until it was time to board the plane. I couldn’t stop being surprised with
the kindness and patience of the airport’s staff who dealt with the
transportation of handicapped people or people with trouble to move around,
in special cars for that effect or wheelchairs.
This trip was also a bit “shaky”. Apparentely, the air up there was a bit troubled, since the plane shook a bit, but not as much as the British Airways plane, which was smaller. This one was from Delta Airlines, an American company. The English were a bit apprehensive and when they asked me how our trip from Portugal to England had been and I told them it had been worse, they felt a bit more relieved. Or was it the other way around...? Well, I thought that I was going to feel annoyed and bored during the trip, but it never happened. First, I could see the photos of the beautiful book Jeane had given me, as well as read some excerpts, with Lu keeping me company. Sandra was sleeping. Meanwhile, the very nice American hostess didn’t stop handing us goodies to eat. I’m telling you that I don’t remember staying long periods without eating or drinking something...! Incredible. When one of the ladies who was sitting behind me asked if I would lent her my book so they could see it, I decided to do something that I didn’t have the time to do before leaving, for not having the patience. I knew that the week of celebrations in Memphis was going to be full of events and that we were inscribed in several of those events. So, I decided to do an itinerary so we wouldn’t loose anything according to our possibilities. The main problem was not being able to be in two places at the same time...! The itinerary that I’ve done, with Lu’s supervision, was the one that guided us since the 10th August until de 21st August - the day we would leave America, arriving at Portugal on the 22nd.
Suddenly, we saw in the screen that we were flying over American land. We were almost getting there and, even so, I coulnd’t believe it. When we started to see the trees, the roads and the buildings of Atlanta, we began to feel real emotional. Sandra, whose dream had always been to visit America - apart from Elvis - was very moved. When the wheels touched the ground, very smoothly, me and Sandra yelled a bit with contentment, saying, “We are here... We arrived in America!” And of course this was followed by another “I can’t believe it!” before the bemused looks of our traveling companions. The great part of them had already been in America before. I am positive that although we were speaking in Portuguese, they could feel our excitement for being there. I don’t want to lie, but I think that we even clapped and everything. We went to fetch our bags. Before that we had to go through another questionary at Atlantas’s airport: who had packed my bag, why was I visiting America, how much time was I going to stay, what was my job in Portugal, etc, etc... What really hit me at this airport was that everything looked SO big... The English airport is also big compared to ours, but this one, looked even bigger. People were also very nice.
I don’t know exactly why, but my two friends were a bit confused, since they thought they didn’t need to travel by plane anymore. “Oh, yes you are!” I told them. We still had to wait for around an hour and half for our plane to Memphis. It was around 6 p.m. (local time) when we arrived in Atlanta. We had to tune our watches again...! While we were still exploring the immense space of that airport, Sandra found a magazine about Elvis from cover to cover in one of the shops and, of course, we bought it. I still haven’t read it completely, but it has some interesting information, like Elvis and Oprah Winfrey being distant cousins...! Sandra was almost dying for a cigarrette, since inside the Delta Airlines’ planes it is forbidden to smoke. I saw a notice inside the toilet which read, “Fines for being caught smoking: 2,800 dollars,” which is the nice amount of 550,000 escudos! When we finally found a smoking lounge, Sandra smoked a cigarrette, but she got sick. She said it was because of staying without smoking for so many hours in a row.
Trevor (the dark haired boy with green eyes) and John (the blond one with brown eyes) were Elvis fans and lived in London. John was completely tired and fell asleep a few minutes after sitting down. Trevor explained that he hadn’t slept a thing during the previous night. I didn’t know why, but I was not going to ask. It was so good to talk with someone who shares so many of my own views...! It was incredible, but it seemed that, sometimes, Trevor’s way of thinking was connected to mine. This may sound a bit idiot to say, but it’s not. I have been meeting many Elvis fans and every one of them has different opinions and views on Elvis. I think Trevor was the person that I’ve met so far who shares more of my own opinions. Sometimes we even answered the same question at the same time...! Of course we always laughed about it later. He was very straight forward. He asked me if I was married or single. I said I was single and he immediately said that he was married with two kids: a boy of 11, named Aaron (guess why?) and another of 6, named Ben. I enjoyed the fact that he was so straight forward, at least he was saying that he was there to enjoy himself, but not to date with anyone. This was an attitude that John didn’t share with him...! I talked with him so many times and I still don’t know if he’s married or single, or how old is he...! Trevor is 36 years old. The trip was very quick.
There we went to pick up our bags. John woke up, a bit annoyed! He came to my side and only after looking at his identification card I noticed what his surname was: John Wilkinson! I noticed that because he was telling me he was going to participate in the art exhibition at Graceland Plaza (just in front of Graceland) with one of his drawings and I wanted to see what his surname was to look for it. I was also a bit upset for not having known about this exhibition before (I only came to know about it on board of the plane to Atlanta), since I would for sure participate in it too with one of my drawings, or my Elvis knitted sweater or some of my embroideries. Oh well... better luck next time. But coming back to the name again, I laughed and said I would never forget about his name, since he had the same name as Elvis’ rhythm guitar player! And would you believe it if I told you he had never noticed that...? I think John isn’t such a big Elvis fan. Or maybe he is just absent-minded. Both Trevor and me know all the names of every musician and backup singer who have worked with Elvis. But... thinking about it, there are lots of fans who don’t care much about that, right?
When we arrived at the Memphis airport, we saw the first sign that we were in the land of the King, without counting with the name of the city, of course! We saw a sign in lights with Graceland and an image of Elvis rocking, inviting people to go and visit his house. Sandra went up the stairs on the other side again, just to go down once more and take a photo on that...! Meanwhile, we were already using our second film. We got out and Kathy told us that we were going to enter our bus, which number is: “Number 12!” we all yelled in one voice. Kathy was always testing us to see if we paid attention to what she told us. Coach number 12 would always be our bus for the excursions throughout our stay. We put the luggage inside the bus, with the help of a young black lady. I took a deep breath to feel Memphis air, to see what it felt like. It was hot and the best way to describe the humidity that I also felt was like being inside a room filled with water steam. When I took that deep breath, it looked like my lungs were receiving little microscopic drops of water. Which, indeed, was what was really happening. Then we took our very first shot together in Memphis. One of our traveling companions, an elder gentleman, offered to photograph us three. Lu and Sandra took their shoes off, to feel Memphis’ soil beneath their feet! I didn’t do it, since the whole bus was waiting for us to leave and as I had tennis shoes, it was more difficult to take them off.
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