Elvis time is turkey time

When I think of Thanksgiving, I inevitably think of Elvis.
That sounds incongruous, I know. Let me explain, or try to.
The year was 1960. I’d just turned 12, and the Ronald family Thanksgiving celebration was going to be in Richmond that November.
We were gathering, as I recall, at the home of my Uncle Jim and Aunt Dorothy.
Family get-togethers tended to rotate among the Richmond and Portland homes of my father’s nearby brothers and sisters. And that year it was apparently Jim and Dorothy’s turn to play host.
Trouble was, it wasn’t a very big house.
And it was a big extended family.
The kitchen was so crowded with aunts that no kid would dare venture in there. A small den in one corner of the house had an equally small black-and-white television set that could be counted on to provide an afternoon football game.
But if the weather was lousy — as it so often is in November — there really was no place for the kids to go.
At some point, probably in an act of desperation, one of the adults apparently suggested that it would be a good idea for the assembled cousins to absent the premises, make their way downtown, and take in a movie.
I will always suspect that the adult who made the suggestion wanted to watch the football game in peace.
Now, a movie on Thanksgiving might be a tradition these days, but in 1960 it was still pretty daring in our household.
After all, going to the Hines to catch a Sunday matinee required special permission from my parents. Sunday was Sunday, and Sunday wasn’t meant for frivolous things like movies. Only a Hollywood epic like “The Ten Commandments” was likely to breach the Sunday restriction.
But given the size of the house, the raw November weather, and the prospect of an afternoon without all those noisy kids combined to convince my parents and aunts and uncles to relent.
The only question then was: What movie?
If “The Ten Commandments” had been playing, it would have gotten the nod. But it wasn’t.
Elvis was.
Specifically, Elvis was appearing in “G.I. Blues,” a vehicle designed to play on his recent stint in the U.S. Army.
To say that at age 12 I was not an Elvis fan would be a gross understatement. Four years later I’d be a Beatles fan, but Elvis never made much of an impression on me.
My cousin Jane, who was 14, and her brother Doug, who was about 16, were firmly in the Elvis camp, however. And their opinions ruled the day.
It was, after all, their house.
So as soon as the pumpkin pie had settled in our stomachs, we were shunted out the door to the theatre and a full afternoon of Elvis.
By then the tryptophan should have guaranteed that I’d sleep through the matinee, but the movie had one redeeming feature, the dancer Juliet Prowse. She was gorgeous.
So what if she was 24 years old? I was 12 and I was in love.
I’ll always be grateful to Elvis for providing the introduction.[[In-content Ad]]