"Thankya, thankya very much..."

As a member of the "Baby Elvis Clan" I am pleased to announce that today would have been the 70th birthday of The King.
Back home, this day – as well as August 16 – was celebrated and acknowledged like any bank holiday. I was a big fan as a little girl, and I still love his music, despite the whole controversy. My favorite Elvis song is “Surrender”, but my favorite treat always came on his birthday. The local oldies station always played this live version of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” in which Elvis, who’d been teasing a balding man in the front row, changes the lyrics to continue to rib this guy, and gets himself so tickled that he can’t stop laughing and finish the song. His backup singers come to the rescue and help him close out the number, but for those couple of minutes, you get to hear the beautiful, beautiful sound of Elvis laughing deep belly laughs – a rare treat, especially during that time of his life.
Today is also the birthday of one of my best patrons, Doug W.
Doug and his wife Sharon are good people (and new citizens – they were SERIOUS “ferriners” before*) as well as avid readers. Sharon and I share similar taste in novels (she has turned me on to a few of my favorite new authors and titles) and Doug keeps the ‘M’ section hot, and likes some of my odd recommendations. They also have great taste in movies, and will trust me to make a suggestion in that department from time to time too. They’re both smart and pragmatic, they have good senses of humor, and they don’t make fun of my accent. I won’t even call them “durn Yankees”, in fact. Just “good neighbors”. : )
Happy birthday to you, Doug, and to The King, wherever you are. My present to Doug (and all the rest of you) is a link to this sweet site where someone found and posted a wav file of this great song!
(in case the hyperlink doesn't work, here's the url:
http://spiritoftruth.freeservers.com/web3/lonesometonightelvis.html )

Tomorrow is the birthday of my Gramaw Winnie, Richard M. Nixon (who I met when I was 9, and who sent Gramaw a birthday card every year for many years, even after he was impeached) and our friend Dan, who will be 21. Happy birthday to Dan, and to Winnie Atsie and Mr. Nixon, wherever y’all are too. Gramaw, I hope you are teaching Mr. Nixon some lessons about eavesdropping – and how to make a good lemon pie. Share some with Elvis and tell him I said “Thanks”, please.

I hope y’all enjoy this song. I’d begun to think I’d never hear it again, much less be able to share it with all of you - “All hail the mighty ‘net!”
Much love,
-s

p.s. I still have some issues and clarifications to add to yesterdays' rant, but I'll wait 'till next week and see if anybody gives a damn anyway.

*They came all the way from CANADA!