We all know what today is. Even those of us who are forgetful, or those heathens who don’t swear fealty to The King, should know after this story was in the paper
yesterday.

The front-page promo for that story asked readers whether they remembered "where you were the day Elvis died."

Well, I should hope so, seeing as how I was probably the first human on the planet outside of Memphis to know of his reputed demise. I wrote a column about it on the 25th anniversary, which in honor of the occasion I will repeat in its entirety here:

ELVIS AND ME, OR, THE KING IS DEAD, BUT ONLY TECHNICALLY
Published on: 08/16/2002

By BRAD WARTHEN, Editorial Page Editor
MY GOOD FRIEND Les Seago was the man who told the world that the King was dead. But before he told the world, he told me.
    I’ve always appreciated that, even though it didn’t do me much practical good at the time.
    On Aug. 16, 1977, Les was the chief Memphis correspondent for The Associated Press. I was the slot man on the copy desk of The Jackson Sun, which meant I had been at work since 5:30 a.m. By early afternoon, the paper was on its way to readers. I had also been a stringer for Les for years, and I was used to his calls to see what was going on in our area. But he didn’t have time for that this day.
    Was it too late to get something in? he demanded. Well, yeah, it was, just barely, but why…?
    It looks like Elvis is dead, he said, explaining quickly that he had a source, an ambulance driver from Baptist Hospital, who told him he had just brought Elvis in, and he was pretty sure that his passenger had been beyond help. Gotta go now, ‘bye.
    He must have broken all speed records getting it confirmed, because I had just begun to tell my co-workers when the "bulletin" bell went off on the wire machine as it hammered out the news.
    Les himself was found dead at his home two years ago, at age 61. Though his career had spanned many years and he had covered Martin Luther King’s assassination, The Associated Press identified him in his obituary
as the man "who filed the bulletin on the death of Elvis Presley." His ex-wife Nancy said "He wasn’t wild about Elvis, but he was glad that he did break the story." That was Les.
    Sometime after that phone call, it struck me as odd that the ambulance driver had been less than sure that his passenger was dead. According to the details that later came out, it seems he would have been able to tell. Maybe they didn’t let him get close. I don’t know. But I remembered that uncertainty years later, when all the live Elvis sightings began to be reported. While it is my considered opinion that anyone who thinks they ran into the King at the Circle K is a couple of jelly doughnuts shy of a Graceland breakfast, the way the man lives on in the hearts of his fans is almost as hard to believe.
    Don’t get me wrong. Elvis meant a lot to me, too. One of my family’s earliest home movies shows me at the age of 4, gyrating with a plastic guitar and shouting out "Hound Dog." I still think the kinetic essence of rock ‘n’ roll has never been expressed better than he did it in "Hard-Headed Woman." When my family moved to Memphis in 1971, I didn’t even know it was on the Mississippi River. But I knew that it was where Elvis lived.
    Memphis was fond of Elvis, but in a calm sort of way. His last series of concerts in his hometown, at the Mid-South Coliseum, had to be extended to seven performances to accommodate the demand. (I was there for one of them. I sat close enough to learn how to do that hip-shaking thing, which I will only demonstrate on special occasions.) But the town never made a fuss over him. He was the King, but he was also just this guy who rode his motorcycle around town and occasionally dropped in at a dealership to buy a Cadillac for some complete stranger.
    It was only after his death that he became an industry. That’s because, in a twist that Joseph Heller might have written, the whole world started coming to Memphis to see Elvis only after he wasn’t there anymore.
    The craziness started a year after that phone call from Les. I was in Memphis covering the simultaneous police and fire strikes that were making national headlines. A group of us were hanging around outside the main police station downtown, waiting for something to happen, when something did — although we didn’t recognize it. A couple of really attractive French girls came up to us to ask, in broken English, how to find Graceland. We had all started trying to tell them by gesturing with our hands and speaking very loudly when some wise guy from The Tennessean showed us all up by giving them directions in French.
    After they had left, we thought to wonder why they wanted to go to Graceland. Didn’t they know Elvis was gone?
    A year after that, my paper sent me back to Memphis, this time to document the bizarre fact that people were still flocking to visit the King’s grave two whole years after his death. The Elvis industry was just starting to gear up in the Bluff City. I interviewed one of the first of a long line of Elvis impersonators, checked out a statue that was about to be unveiled, and went to Graceland.
    In those days, the family was still living in the house, but they didn’t mind folks coming up the driveway to see the grave as long as we behaved. Nobody sold tickets. Uncle Vester Presley sat on a folding chair out at the oft-photographed front gate greeting everybody. That’s where the line began. After chatting with Uncle Vester, I wandered up the queue interviewing fans at random. They were from all over this country, plus a group from Leicester, England.
    As respectful visitors gazed down at the graves of Elvis and Gladys, I talked with a young man with a walkie-talkie who was helping keep an eye on the crowd. He was one of E’s karate and racquetball buddies, now a sort of impromptu security guard and keeper of the flame. He must have liked my attitude, because he decided to share something special with me. Guiding me discreetly over to a corner of the house, he had me peer into the rear grounds. "See that ol’ pink Cadillac back there? No, back there… see it?" He went on in a hushed, reverent tone: "That’s the first car he bought his momma."
    You can still see the pink Cadillac — for a price. You can even go inside Graceland now. You buy a ticket across the street, somewhere in that awful, plastic, glittery block full of trashy souvenir shops, and some stranger drives you over on a bus.
    When we visited Memphis this year, some of my kids did the Graceland tour. They thought it was pretty cool. I think it helped them, who never knew the King, get a little more in touch with their essential Elvisness. As for me, I have yet to visit the Jungle Room. Elvis himself hasn’t invited me in. Yet.
    Write to Mr. Warthen at [email protected].

I would not be able to forget this anniversary even if I tried. Chris Roberts former reporter and computer whiz at The State, has brought me a jelly donut on this date each year for longer than I can remember. Even now that Chris has left the building to go teach at the university, he still manages to deliver. He sent the one pictured above via a colleague who was visiting the campus. Without that happy coincidence I’m not sure what he would have done, but Chris is a man sufficiently in touch with his essential Elvisness that he would have managed some way.

Thanyuh, Chris. Thankyuverimuch.

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