Wednesday, August 16, 2017

News of the King's Death

On the news this morning was a trivia-bit reminding us that Elvis Presley passed on forty years ago today. 'They' say that you remember where you were and what you were doing when you hear a certain piece of news.

I was sitting in a friend's luxurious basement rec room watching the colour console television. (He was upstairs with his family at that moment.) On the tube came CFTO news. The breaking headline was "the King is dead".

At the time I was into 1950s pop/rock, so the story carried some resonance for me.

That was forty years ago?


3 comments:

DonaldAR said...

I was not watching T.V. I have my suspicions this blogger may have been in front of a boob tube for most major news event in the latter half of the 20th century...
I was running (more or less, literally) with an elite, albeit motley, crew of barely teenage nerds and over-achievers (before they were fashionable). We formed the inaugural program of the "Enriched/Level 6" grade 9 program at Northern Secondary School. We were a 'Geek Clique," if you will, despite assurances to the general educational population that we would not be forming an exclusive/privileged group. Over the years the terminology and the programs were morphed and "streamed" and unstreamed and watered down to "Basic" and "Advanced" - one presumes to sooth the sensitivities of the intellectually disadvantaged and easily triggered groups now forming the alt-right and electing scary clowns to run Western superpowers. I digress.
I was also getting ready, reluctantly, for a family move from the Big Smoke to the remote outpost of Barrie. Admittedly, in Ontario's formerly "fastest growing city," I would eventually meet some lifelong friends. Also possibly nemeses.

Simon St. Laurent said...

Thanks for the note!

Yeah, my friend and I were about to work on a promotional audio tape for a high school club. September was fast approaching and we wanted to get it done in time for the new school year. (We ended up not using it.)

Now, of course, we often get such breaking news stories through something like a friend's text.

Tibor said...

I remember being at our cottage teaching a neighbourhood kid how to ride a bike when I heard. Funny how the mind works with these kinda milestones...