Elvis Has Left the Building 45 Years Later
August 16th, 1977. I was a 13-year-old kid enjoying the summer of my life. America had just gotten over a huge celebration of a bicentennial celebration, so 1977 felt a little different.
As a kid at that age, the most important thing was riding your 10 speed up to the local movie theater with a bunch of friends to spend an afternoon out of the hot sun. I used to go see movies at the Macomb Mall Cinema. Something was new in 1977, and it was called the Showcase Cinemas, which had a total of five theaters at the time all showing different movies. The summer was split between this new movie called “Star Wars” and another movie called “Smokey and the Bandit.”
I remember August 16th for a couple of reasons. Back then just before school started, they would post on the front door of the school a listing of what teacher you had and what class room. I had just came back from a ride on my 10-speed from a local Kmart when I heard on the radio the news that Elvis had passed away. Collecting records even back then, I had a ton of Elvis 45s and a couple albums. The story of Elvis passing dominated every local news outlet, back then on all three channels: CBS, NBC and ABC. I really didn’t know how to feel, as it was the first really big celebrity that I knew that had passed away. But I do remember some friends that went to see him at the Pontiac Silverdome and the old Olympia back in the day.
In 2022, there is a brand new resurgence of Elvis Mania due to a new movie in theaters. In fact, the movie soundtrack is on the Billboard’s Top 100 Chart. After all these years, it’s good to see that Elvis’s impact is still being felt by many generations to come.
