Thursday, August 16, 2007

30 Years Ago Today

I remember exactly where I was 30 years ago today. Son Bill, who was 10 years old at the time, and I were on the eastward leg of our trip from Springfield, IL to Los Angeles and back. Bill put an account of that journey on his blog this past Father's Day. In the late afternoon, we pulled into Spearfish, South Dakota where we had difficulty finding a motel room because of a performance event that annually drew thousands of people to the local college. We finally found lodging at a somewhat "marginal but bearable" place. We turned the TV on (at least it worked) to a special news report that Elvis Presley had died. It was big news in South Dakota, in part because one of his last concerts had been in Rapid City less than 2 months earlier.


And a picture billed as coming from Elvis' final concert:



I am sure that Bill and I are not the only ones who remember exactly where we were when we heard the news on August 16, 1977.

2 comments:

Eric Valentine said...

I remember vaguely where I was Leon, but if you were to ask me about the terrible air disaster with the 'Manchester United Football club' that many years ago I probably could :)

Leon said...

There's one event etched into my memory and probably every other conscious American at the time... 11/22/63, the date of JFKs assassination. I may write about my detailed memories on November 22 this year.