The World's Common Tater

Yesterday was the anniversary of Elvis’s death. As usual, my Facebook feed had several posts of people talking about how they remember where they were when they heard about his death. I do remember. I was 8 years old. I was staying at my grandmother’s house while my dad was in the hospital. It is not an exciting story and not the story for this post. When people talk about his death, I always say I don’t acknowledge it because I have seen him since his “death”. Here is that story.

I was in college at the time. It was either right before my junior or senior year. I was active in the Baptist Student Union and we were meeting at the BSU building to go to a week-long retreat at Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina. I was early because I am always early(and possibly because I lived at the BSU that year). Because I was early, I decided to go get myself a cup of coffee. I walked down the street to Hardees. It was a perfect time to be a young man on a college campus. It was sunny and warm. Sorority rush was happening. Campus was full of attractive young women. It was a nice walk.

I made it to Hardees. As I was entering the building, I saw someone coming out. Because I am a person who holds the door for everyone, I held the door open for the person to exit before I entered. As he walked past I noticed he looked familiar. As he said “Thank you. Thank you very much” in his distinctive voice, I realized that he looked familiar because it was Elvis. He wasn’t wearing a sequined jumpsuit or anything. He was just wearing an ordinary button-down shirt and jeans, but he was clearly Elvis. I went on inside and got my giant cup of coffee and then went about my life. I have told that story consistently this time of year every since.

I obviously realize that I happened to bump into an Elvis impersonator on his off time, but it’s much more fun to say that I have proof that Elvis didn’t die in 1977.

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