Travel writer, Graceland: ‘Surrounded by singing Hawaiian dolls, I fell in love with Elvis’

The humidity of the American Deep South is a force to be reckoned with. A week into our Alabama to Charleston road trip and neither my hair (naturally curly and quick to become Monica-Gellar-in-the-Bahamas-esque) nor my temperament had calmed down in adjustment to the claggy fog that was so unfamiliar to me.

This was a family holiday, probably one of our last as my brother and I would soon be expected to pay our own way. A mysterious thing happens on family holidays: the roles of family members become exaggerated. In my family, this meant my dad was in charge of organisation, my mum of food and my brother and I of sulking, grumbling and eating. I had been horrendous company so far.

We had been “dragged” around Birmingham, Alabama, Elvis’s birthplace Tupelo, and Memphis, Tennessee by Dad, while Mum fed us corn-syrup-laced American snacks to boost morale. We had even taken a pitstop at Sun Studios, Elvis’s musical birthplace.

None of this made much of an impression on me. My favourite thing about the US is the food. I strolled around Sun Studios paying more attention to the Nutter Butters I was eating than anything else.

Dad suggested we take a tour of Graceland before heading further south into swamps and alligator territory. One promise of a Walmart trip and I was on board. I was familiar with Elvis and his music, in that I could easily recognise his songs.

Graceland turned out to be a funny place; it is half-shrine, half-gift shop. Just to buy an entrance ticket meant queueing to have a picture taken, then queuing to get in, where they would ask you if you wanted to buy the picture that you had only had taken so that you could buy your entrance ticket. Once in, you queue for a bus, hop on and hop off 20 seconds later when the bus has crossed the road and driven up Elvis’s driveway.

Turns out Elvis was a pretty cool guy. You get to poke around his living room, his bedroom, his room which looked kind-of-but-not-quite like a jungle. It was a little like having a nose around a house that’s for sale, except the owner is very eccentric and very into himself.

When you’ve finished that bit of the tour you head to Giftshopland (not optional). To leave every room means walking through a gift shop. And there are a lot of rooms. In the “Elvis in Hawaii” gift shop, which was one of the last, I was waiting for my family when I became entranced by a clip of Elvis singing.

He sings If I Can Dream, a play on words of Martin Luther King’s speech and an underplayed plea for understanding from Elvis, as to why he can’t see heaven. While he is singing, his daughter talks over him and this bit, her interpretation of her father’s words, gets me. The loss of Elvis’s parents and his wife left him hoping more than anything that there is “a better land” where he will meet them once again.

And that moment right there, watching Elvis singing and Lisa interpreting whilst I’m surrounded by little plastic Hawaiian dolls in grass skirts singing Elvis was exactly when I fell in love with Mr Presley.

[ Irish Times Amateur Travel Writer Competition ]