Elvis on my Birthday

 

Thanks to my parents I got good coverage, but growing up in 2 places at once makes for a busy time on the bilocation side of things. Every summer around my birthday I had to go help out Elvis as some kind of a deal my parents had made with somebody.

It wasn’t the same as going to school the rest of the year or even just going to summer camp. For example the year I was born I had to convince Elvis not to fight with the other usher over the candy counter girl at Lowe’s State Theater. I learned that he only learned from experience. He kept me out the next summer going to all night gospel sings.

So it was not surprising the day he took off from the machine shop to record a song for his mother at Memphis Recording. That was around my birthday and we were there again the next year almost to the day.

It’s well known that Elvis had friends and hangers-on and a lot of people felt they knew him, they say they knew him, whatever. He didn’t know me though. I was invisible to Elvis like a guardian angel but I could steer him in the right direction if he was listening. Making movies and going on endless dates he kept me under the radar or I did him.

By 1958 I had spent about 7 summers shadowing this machinist from Tupelo and he was getting out of control, so he packed off to Fort Hood and the military.

Every July from then on, there was water skiing, album recording, late night movies to watch and others to be in like Viva Las Vegas, Tickle Me, Paradise Hawaiian Style. Then Las Vegas shows through the early 1970s, tour tour tour. On my 25th birthday Elvis finished his Oklahoma shows to take a vacation in Palm Springs.

I’m still around but he didn’t have long to live at the time. He never knew me but sure took a big bite of my summers.

What we need is a new bottled water

 The new hire from Pferrier Sparkling Waters looked around to the interview committee. He was introduced by the strongest advocate for quadrupling his salary from his former company.

The head of Feizer Farm said,

"You can't keep a good bottled water man down. In a world of too few plastic bottles, he created a world of too many plastic bottles. It's atrocious that his company, where he built his career, considered that work for hire no more or less compensated by raises and promotions.

 In all of history, plastic water bottles filled with something are second only to tobacco. But we are the beneficiaries of Pferrier's short sightedness. Our new Pfierre here will top his previous achievement. He will create something with a guaranteed demand for it. So many customers; we can keep putting new expiration dates on our batches from here to eternity. I personally will vouch for the board on his compensation plan."

No one could have guessed that the new man would have not just a new product--- but an old idea to go with it. He would change the name of the company while keeping the pfronunciation exactly the same as before.