Word: grave
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...double chin appeared. When she looked me in the eye I saw why she was going to Memphis. Her eyes shone with a memory and a question. She needed proof. She wanted either to see Elvis and light up the old magic one more time, or see his grave and know finally and for certain that the magic was over. "It's almost like I want to find out that he's not really dead, that he will be there in his mansion and nothing will have changed," Janey said. "Elvis was a young man when he died, you know...
...arrived outside Graceland the day before the anniversary of Elvis's death, to wait in the sun in a quarter-mile line for hours for a chance to file quickly by Elvis's grave, at the side of his mansion, near his kidney-shaped swimming pool. Along the line volunteers from a county rescue team patrolled, watching for victims of heat exhaustion. And hawkers patrolled, too, selling everything from autographed pictures of The King to silk scarves he wore to color film. Across the street--Elvis Presley Boulevard--there was still more. The shops that have sprung...
...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 or the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument--everyone walked up quickly, took pictures, then left...
ONLY AFTERWARDS did the tour members' mood change. Most seemed relieved to have seen the grave, to know where their idol lay. He had sung to them when the world was fresh and bright, and he had kept singing when the greyness of middle-age rose all around, but finally he was silent, and they were left to face the future without the reassurance of his music. After visiting the grave most of the women visited Elvis shops, as though Elvis ash trays and posters and glasses would fill the void. They came away with armfuls of souvenirs...
...capacity for a negative majority against something is a very grave danger to any democracy," Beer said. "The effect of this is that we're doing nothing. We're just drifting along...