www.elvis.com |
TUPELO, ELVIS BIRTH SACK
Miss. -- It is 108 miles from Tupelo to Memphis, but the distance
between Elvis Aron Presley's birthplace and Graceland can only be
measured in astronomical terms. It is nearly beyond understanding.
The two-room shack where baby Elvis first cried
out - diapered hips moving provocatively, we are sure - is smaller
than the dining room at Graceland. The poverty he grew up with and
away from is equally amazing.
The "shotgun house" is so small and frail, you
wonder how it contained the spirit of the future King of Rock &
Roll. There's a statue of Elvis as a 13-year-old and a "museum"
containing a few odds and ends. But to visit the small house is to
get a glimpse of a life that surely shaped the young Elvis in a way
that colored his approach to success.
He wasn't going back to this.
Elvis lived here until he was 3, until he and
his mother were evicted because they couldn't make payments on the
$180 loan taken to build the home. His father had gone to jail for
nine months for forging a check, so even this tiny shack was too
much for the family to afford.
Ultimately, the reunited family moved to Memphis
when Elvis was 13, hoping for a better life. In some ways they found
it. Born here on Jan. 8, 1935, Elvis died at Graceland on Aug. 16,
1977, only 42 years old.
The home at 306 Elvis Presley Drive is open to
the public for $2.50; it is so small, it doesn't take long to see it
all. |
