Days That Stay With Us
The day Elvis died, I was working the night shift in the Safeway Supermarket on Paisley Road in Glasgow.
Doctor Dick—Richard Parks, to give him his full name—got out of his sickbed to interrupt his pre-recorded episode of Dr Dick’s Midnight Surgery on Radio Clyde, which we had blasting through the store’s sound system. Flu wasn’t going to stop the DJ from paying tribute to the so-called King.
As Love Me Tender, Hound Dog, and other classics played, we were shifting a four-thousand-case load of groceries, from tinned beans to Corn Flakes. Frankie and I had the task of cutting and pricing every tin and packet, while ten packers edged closer and closer into each aisle. These were the days before digital barcodes, and it was a skillful process. Armed with a Stanley pallet knife, we had to judge, almost like surgeons, how much pressure to apply. One wrong move, and a mountain of Omo or Daz could collapse into a mess on the floor.
With our minds on the job, Elvis’s death on that August day—August 16, 1977—had little impact on me, though I can’t speak for the rest of the world.
The 31st of August 1997 was a different matter. I heard the news early that Sunday morning as I woke. I had risen at 7 a.m. to review a Bible lecture I was due to give in a Kingdom Hall at Kirkintilloch on the north side of Glasgow. Over breakfast, my family sat in stunned silence as we prepared for the journey along the M8 motorway.
When I gave the talk, no one seemed to be listening. There was a heavy stillness in the room, like being at a wake.
Why was I, along with so many others, grieving for someone we had never met? Was it a reminder of our own mortality? Perhaps. Maybe, in figures like Princess Diana, Elvis, or Michael Jackson, we see something of ourselves—our hopes, our values, our longings. When they die, it feels as if a part of us goes with them.
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