Last weekend I went to the cellar to fetch a box with Christmas decorations. As I was about to leave my eye was caught by a bag in a corner. All of a sudden I remembered one of the things I had stored in it.Opening the bag, I rummaged through it a bit until I found what I was looking for - my red Elvis in Concert jacket. Needless to say, I brought it with me along with the Christmas stuff.
After some detective work, I found out that I bought the jacket throught the Swedish fan club in 1984. (I located the ad for it in one of the first magazines I received when becoming a member.) My brother also ordered one, and man were we proud of them.
The only problem was that it wasn't particulary cool to dig Elvis back then, at least not in my school. It took courage to just wear a badge with Elvis, and the idea of wearing a screaming red jacket with a big Elvis In Concert patch on it... well I was to much of a coward to pull that one off.
My brother, a couple of years younger, had more guts. He wore his red jacket to school with pride. I only had mine on a couple of times at home, and then hang it in the closet. There it stayed until college when a friend of mine borrowed it for a party where he pretended to be a boduguard for Elvis. Guess who dressed up as the King?
Then the jacket went into storage until I remembered it last weekend. Unfortunately it can't be an original Elvis In Concert jacket as it has no white-striped collar and cuffs, although the patches look like the right thing. But I'm happy I found it.
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4 comments:
When I visited Graceland as a 15-year-old in 1990, I remember drooling over those Elvis In Concert jackets in a souvenir shop. Price tag was out of my league, as I recall. Or maybe it would have taken my entire souvenir fund, which I wasn't willing to give up for just one item.
That was also during a period when it wasn't cool to like Elvis (really, how can there ever be such a time?!?!?), but I probably would have worn it anyways. I always kind of marched to the beat of my own drummer, whether Fontana or Tutt.
Uhh, Tygrrius, now I really feel totally spineless for not wearing my Elvis In Concert jacket to school. But to my defence I have to say I wore an Elvis badge on the sleeve on my jeans jacket, something I took a lot of harassment for.
And looking back, I'm proud of the way I kept sticking to Elvis while everybody was telling me how lame that was. I even remember hearing stupid comments while browsing through Elvis albums in a record shop. As you say, how could there be such a time?!
Then gradually, starting in the early 90's it was suddenly cool to dig Elvis. My guess is that it had something to do with the 50's box set and what followed after that.
And when "A Little Less Conversation" became a number one hit about ten years after that, well then I was on top of the world, and finally felt that the people around me understood at least something about Elvis' greatness.
So I too, have always been marching to my own (or Elvis') drummer, I dare say. With that one exception...
I keep listening to the news speak about getting free online grant applications so I have been looking around for the best site to get one.
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