MEETING ELVIS: Evolving Views Of An Idol
by Judy Wilkinson

It has been pointed out that one of the advantages of not being restricted by the costs of producing braille and print versions of the BC, is that articles such as the one below could never have been printed. I hope many of you will be tuning in to the streaming of our 85th birthday CCB conference/convention. One event I'm particularly looking forward to is our banquet entertainment, a concert by an Elvis Presley impersonator. I originally wrote this article for the 50th anniversary of the never-to-be-forgotten October 26, 1957 Elvis Presley concert in San Francisco. The article, briefly to be sure, raises a serious issue for people who are blind or visually-impaired: When if ever, is it permissible to play "the blind card".

Twice in my life I've realized the Bay Area resident's dream of making Herb Caen's column. The first time I was 8 and at Enchanted Hills, a camp for the blind near Napa. Because I had sold the most raffle tickets for a first prize of a sewing machine, I was allowed to draw the winning ticket. Feeling around a big box, I pulled out a ticket, and yes, when they read out the phone number and address, Kelog 4-6983, 2180 Ransom Avenue Oakland, it was the one ticket my mother had purchased.

My second appearance? In an Examiner column for Sunday October 27, 1957, in addition to describing the end of Southern Pacific's transbay ferry service, in paragraph 4 you'll read:

"To ballyhoo l'affaire Presley here yesterday, KYA's Hawthorne staged a 'Why I Like Elvis contest'--the winner to get a ducat and the dizzying opportunity of meeting The Great Man himself.

"The winner: Judy Wilkinson, 14, of Oakland, who still doesn't know what her idol looks like. She's blind."

Realizing this year is the 50th anniversary of Elvis' first Bay Area concert, I became curious about what local newspaper coverage had been for an event which remains so vivid in my memory. I not only found a San Francisco Chronicle ad for the concert (tickets for $2.75 or $3.75) but an article by one Caroline Anspacher describing the concert and its preceding press conference: the one I attended; the one where Elvis put his arm around me, the one I'll never forget.

Anspacher's article takes the tone of most adults in those days: condescending to Elvis and demeaning to his fans.

"Presley Here, Hip Hip Hurray

"Thousands of preconditioned San Francisco Adolescents were "shook up" yesterday by Elvis Presley, the hip-waving vocalist from Memphis Tennessee."

How different my memory of the same event.

On a late October Wednesday afternoon, answering the telephone in my East Oakland home, I experienced all the cliches: knees turned to jelly, stomach filled with churning butterflies. I recognized the voice even before Hawthorne himself, host of Radio KYA's popular afternoon program congratulated me.

I had won the station's contest: two tickets for a Friday night private showing of the-soon-to-be-released Jailhouse Rock, two tickets for the Civic auditorium concert on Saturday afternoon, and best of all, an invitation to attend the preconcert press conference to meet and have my picture taken with the man I'd been dreaming about for two years.

To this day, when people ask me what I wrote to win the in 25-words-or-less-why-do-you-want-to-meet-Elvis contest, I squirm with embarrassment. I was so desperate to win, I had played the blind card!

"Since I can't see him because I'm blind, the only way I'll ever get to see Elvis is if I meet him in person!" Twenty-four words.

Oh to be thirteen (Herb got it wrong) and in love with the singing idol that even Ed Sullivan would bestow his blessing upon. To the day, I knew when a new song would be released and played on the air. I begged my Mother for his albums, going without lunch to save enough money to purchase them. In 1957 he was 22, I 13. I figured that I was young, but he was only 9 years older; people married girls who were nine years younger didn't they?

That fantasy died an instant death in the reality of my excitement mixed with terror at the mere prospect of meeting him.

All evening the phone rang and rang with congratulatory calls: from blind friends in the Saturday afternoon programs for young people at what was then the San Francisco Rose Resnick Lighthouse; from newer friends, Rainbow Girls Oakland Assembly 11, the Masonic organization I had joined just two months earlier. The next two days at Bancroft Junior High in San Leandro, I was the most popular girl in the whole school.

I didn't mind missing the Friday evening Jailhouse Rock Sneak Preview. With 3 younger siblings in our home and my mother working nights as a waitress, it was difficult enough for my parents to take me to the concert, amuse my younger siblings and find me afterwards.

Matching skirts and sweaters were in that year, and that Saturday I was wearing mine: soft to the touch and soft pink in color; even then I knew what an expensive gift my mother had given me that previous Christmas. I knew I looked my very best, because I had received lots of compliments on this special outfit.

Ms. Anspacher about the press conference:

"Pasty-faced and nervous, he wiped his sweating hands over the front of his tight trousers and grimaced at the group in front of him.

"In response to what they took for a smile, the young girls huddled close together. One burst into tears; seven snapped pictures of him. Three sketched him. Then they began raising their hands as if they were in class, asking recognition.

"In his husky drawl Presley said he didn't know when he was going in the army. He was 1A, he said, and waiting to be called.

No, he said, he didn't wear a wig. No, he never did say he didn't need the press any more.

"One girl asked, "Who are you mad about now?" Presley twitched slightly. He said, "no one in particular."

"Another girl asked, "What's your ultimate ambition?"

"My ultimate ambition is to become an actor. I couldn't handle anything real heavy now; I'll have to work up to it."

"He was asked, "Are you studying drama?" Presley twitched again: "I'm not studying anything. I figure it's experience that counts not studying. I never had any lessons. I just take things as they come, and when this comes up, I'll make the best of it."

"Then came an interlude of photographing. After that, Presley autographed everything handed to him: shoes, programs, handkerchiefs, scarves, bits of paper. They all read, "Loving you, Elvis."

"He called all his young admirers "Honey," and absently rubbed their shoulders and necks."

I remember none of this. I was too busy worrying about my own hands. Elvis' may have been "sweaty," but mine were clammy. What would I do? What if he wanted to shake hands? I had nothing to wipe them on--I certainly couldn't use my skirt). They were getting more sopping wet by the minute. Why didn't I have any Kleenex! Why oh why had I listened to my Mother who had advised me not to carry a purse!

For a moment, after the "interlude of photographing," (probably during the "general autographing session" I feared I had been forgotten, but almost as the panic formed, Hawthorne was at my side, and we pushed in with the rest. I'm not sure he had worked out in advance how he was going to get his contest winner her big moment, but a space must have opened up because without any warning, no time to get the knees shaking or the hands more sweaty, or to give a final agonizing thought to what I might say, Hawthorne was saying, "Elvis, this young lady has won our contest and is looking forward to meeting you."

I needn't have worried about my clammy hands. Elvis put his arm around me and we both stood for a moment saying nothing.

"He's so tall," I thought. If I had known anything about sex, I would have recognized this arousal for what it was. His arm was definitely pressuring my waist; the left side of my body was actually touching his. A warm fuzziness suffused me.

"Are you nervous Honey?" (Ms. Anspacher and I both remember the "honey" part.)

"N-no"

"Well that's good Honey."

Finally, desperately my small voice sounding distant through the roaring in my ears, I blurted, "I know the concert will be wonderful."

"What's your favorite song?"

"I Want you I need you I love you," I breathed.

"I'll sing it just for you Honey; you enjoy the concert now!"

And I did.

Anspacher wrote: "Presley, wearing a pompadour, a pout, sideburns to his chin and a wine-red suit, played at the Civic Auditorium to afternoon and evening audiences whose shrieks carried down to Market Street."

Well we at least agree that the screams were probably heard down to Market Street.

Joyful stomach butterflies suffused my entire body. Our seats were in the absolute front row. At one point I reached out and touched the rope separating us from the stage. The previous days and especially the past hour were filled with excitement yes, but fear, panic and terror too: all at an almost unbearably painful intensity. Now instead of being a taut violin string, I became the singing violin joining the ritual, the fevered frenzy of hysterically-screaming girls, shrieking as one.

"Whether the preponderantly female audience came to hear Presley sing or to watch his caricature of sex, could not be determined. They roared through every one of his 14 rock-n-roll offerings in such crescendo that three policemen and four firemen were forced to leave the building."

Roar we did! Generally prim and reserved, I sobbed and shrieked with thousands.

"Don't Be Cruel," with that famous, sexy, "ummmmmm" and all of us in ecstatic screaming harmony!

"I Was the One Who Taught Her to Cry"; panting and hoarse with delirious exhaustion; "Heartbreak Hotel"; and then some time in the middle of the set, "I Want You I Need You I Love You," surely sung especially for me!

For years I locked this memory away: Shamed by what I did to win, and by a high school friend who derided my "childish infatuation." I told no one about my magical experience during my 10 years at UC Berkeley: Elvis made movies, invaded Las Vegas; I barely noticed.

But during the 1970's, one in credible song, "In the Ghetto" reminded me that "The King" as he now was, possessed a great soul. I had let Elvis back into my heart. So in 1977 while preparing lessons for the fall semester at Skyline Community College (where I taught 28 years) when I heard the news from Graceland that Elvis had died, the tears flowed. Had it been 20 years since a dynamic charismatic boy had put his arm around me?

And now another 42 years later, looking forward to our banquet entertainment, finds me once again remembering Elvis. I no longer worry about any contest shame. With the legend of "The King" still so large yet so poignantly sad, I remember as clearly as if it were this very week, not the bloated drug-fogged shell, but the polite young man of 22 who gave a young girl a moment of supreme happiness.

[Hold me close, hold me tight
Make me thrill with delight
Let me know where I stand from the start
I want you, I need you, I love you
With all my heart

Ev'ry time that you're near
All my cares disappear
Darling, you're all that I'm living for
I want you, I need you, I love you
More and more

I thought I could live without romance
Until you came to me
But now I know that
I will go on loving you eternally

Won't you please be my own?
Never leave me alone
'Cause I die ev'ry time we're apart
I want you, I need you, I love you
With all my heart
...
]