(From the Succotash County Times, August 23, 1987)
Well, I’d been cannin’ my bread an’ butter pickles all mornin’
An’ it was getting’ so hot in the kitchen I was sweatin’ like
An ice cream freezer at the Independence Day picnic an’ crawdad cook-off.
So I took me a break an’ went out on the front porch to catch a cool breeze
An’ put up my tired feet, an’ drink a glass or two o’ lemonade.
I’d no more ‘n’ got to feelin’ like my ol’ self again when this man walks up.
He had black hair an’ sunglasses on so’s I couldn’t see what he looked like
But he said the lemonade looked mighty refreshin’ an’ could he have a glass.
I said sure thing an’ he sat down on the chair acrost from me.
I introduced myself as I was pourin’ him a tall glass an’ refillin’ mine.
When he sipped at his glass he told me that his name was Elvis Aaron Presley.
Well, I thought my jaw was gonna drop clean through to China.
Just to prove it he took off his glasses an’ laid ‘em on the table.
Shore enough, I’d know those baby blue eyes enywheres.
An’ my heart gave that funny little kerflop just like it used to
Back when he was alive an’ kickin’ an’ singin’ up a storm.
I sez to him “Elivis, hon’, you’re supposed to be dead an’ gone!
What’re you doin’ walkin’ ‘round like this an’ scarin’ folks half to death?”
Then he says that he surely was well dead an’ buried at Graceland,
But he has a whole heap o’ unfinished business before he can move on.
So I ask him what’s keepin’ him here instead o’ with the Good Lord.
An’ he tells me he needed to let Priscilla know that he really did love her,
An’ that Lisa Marie was the pride o’ his whole life,
An’ he wanted her to know how sorry he was about her an’ Michael Jackson
An’ their break-up. Not ‘cause he was black or nothin’
But ‘cause show business, with all that attention an’ money.
Makes it extra hard to make a marriage work out.
He also said that for awhile he’d been on a campaign
To get people to stop singin’ “Happy Birthday” like they was a choir o’ mice
Or a pond o’ bull frogs rather than just plain folks.
But that didn’t work out too well since it seemed that the song
Was always started out by the most tone-deaf person there.
I can tell you, Elvis Presley is just one o’ the finest boys ever!
We talked for an hour an’ more, an’ he thanked me for the lemonade
I fixed him up a peanut butter an’ banana sandwich
An’ packed him another one for the road
‘Cause he said he was meetin’ Jack Kennedy an’ the Big Bopper
At a convenience store in Jonesboro that evenin’.
I waved good-bye an’ wisht him well as he took off
He turned back an’ told me he’d by me a big purple Cadillac
Next time he found himself out an’ around these parts.
Wasn’t that just like him all over? So generous an’ all?
I wasn’t until he’d been gone a good twenty minutes or so
That I hadn’t gotten a autograph or a photo or anythin’.
But he had sung me a couple choruses o’ Hound Dog an’ Viva Las Vegas
It’s somethin’ I’ll remember and cherish clean into the next world.
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