Word: got
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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SOMEHOW rock'n roll got old. It didn't seem possible that a year had passed since Elvis died--more than 20 years since he cut "Hound Dog," "All Shook Up," "Jailhouse Rock," and "Don't Be Cruel." But it was true, and that was how I came to be riding all night from Connecticut down to Tennessee with a busload of middle-aged women hell-bent on reaching the graveside of their dead king on the first anniversary of his death. That was how I came to meet Janey Cray, who swooned over Elvis when she was young...
...rolling. The story starts before rock'n roll became an American institution, before it splintered into hard rock, bubble gum rock, acid rock, punk rock, jazz-rock, folk-rock, and that most castrated form of rock, if it can be called rock at all--disco. By the time I got on the bus this summer there was really little left of the original rock'n roll. When Elvis first sang he was a rebel; when the Bay City Rollers "rock 'n roll" now they're barely even cute--bubble gum is cloying. Elvis was outrageous in the '50s because...
...boyfriends from home. Jesus. I squirmed and looked toward the back of the bus. Twenty middle-aged women's faces, pointing towards Tennessee, looked back at me. I slouched down in the chair and tried to remember jokes my mother might have liked. Twenty-four hours. Jesus. I got claustrophobic. Twenty-four hours. I tried to stay calm. On the New Jersey Turnpike the tension broke when we passed a good-looking truck driver and one woman in back shouted, "Check it out!" The rest of the passengers hooted and waved. They were away from husbands and families and they...
...about 3 a.m. after the songs had died away and most of the passengers' heads were nodding over their chests, that I got to know Janey Cray. I was sitting awake, thinking of my next day's story, and she was sitting awake in the seat across the aisle, watching the road. She was a grandmother, I found out, and she was traveling with three friends--a neighbor, a sister, and her best friend since second grade. She was overweight, she had deep crows' feet around her eyes, and her throat rasped when she laughed. But her clothes were...
...people in line were almost all devoted fans, but emotions and good intentions got lost in the shuffle. It was almost hard to believe Elvis was buried there, beneath the pillars and fountains and bouquets. Many almost forgot he was there. One girl from Springfield, Mass. had come intending to pray for Elvis, but at Graceland she was so busy taking pictures that it slipped her mind. And Janey expected to cry when she saw the grave, but she was too numbed by the crowd and the spectacle to even get choked up. It was like seeing Old Faithful...