TINY TUESDAY (m)
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TINY TUESDAY (m)
| Tue, 01-08-2002 - 10:34am |
TINY TUESDAY (m)
Being that it’s Elvis Presley’s birthday, let’s include him in this week’s Tiny Tuesday. Write a scene or short story that has something to do with Elvis. Feel free to use one of his songs, an Elvis look-a-like or use the real thing: the King himself.
Have fun,
Mac
PS…if you need some inspiration, check out his website: http://www.elvis.com/elvisology/

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My TT: The King, the Movie Star & the Writer (m)
This was an idea for a story I had way back when the Getting Serious board had an exercise about "Outcasts". I thought of it this morning when I posted the TT exercise and I've been writing away all day-LOL. I hope you enjoy it and welcome any type of feedback (NPC included). Thanks, Mac
PS...I trimmed and trimmed so I have 500 words exactly!!!
* * *
The saddest day of my life was when I realized they were gone. For as long as I can remember, I had my “imaginary friends” (as Mama called them). I never went anywhere without the king, the movie star and the writer tagging along. All the books say a person can’t remember things before a certain age. But I swear I looked up from my cradle the day I came home from the hospital and saw their faces. Elvis and Marilyn smiling from ear to ear, but not Ernie; the writer was the serious one.
It was Elvis’ singing that calmed my colicky stomach and not the vacuum cleaner like Aunt Deidra claimed. And he got me walking at eight months but Mama didn’t write that in my baby book though. I couldn’t talk then so I had no way of telling her about the dark-headed man that’d stand next to her waving a donut at me and saying, “Come on, baby. Just one step and you can have a bite.”
But if it hadn’t have been for Marilyn, I might have died before I turned three. I’d wandered out the front door before Mama knew I was gone. Heading full-blast down the driveway -- straight for the busy street at the foot of our yard -- Marilyn stopped me. “Where do you think you’re going, Billy?” she asked in a hushed tone just moments before Mama came running towards me. She might have been a movie star named Marilyn Monroe to everybody else, but to me she was my beautiful babysitter.
I liked playing with the king and the movie star, but it was the writer that helped me with my schoolwork. I hated when he acted like my real teacher, insisting that I call him Mr. Hemingway. But he made me smart -- in fact, I was the smartest kid in my second grade class.
Being smart though got me picked on by the other kids. But as usual, Elvis came to my rescue. Everybody else at the school’s talent show did stupid skits but Daddy said that my performance would outshine any Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. After winning first place, my classmates started to like me -- at least for a while.
Then came the day my three friends vanished.
During recess, some of us were playing kickball and Jimmy Whitmore slammed the ball right into my nose.
When I came too, I gazed at the faces staring down at me, looking for the king, the movie star or the writer. “Ernie…Elvis…has anybody seen Marilyn?” I cried.
The kids in my class kept laughing until Mrs. Mason came running over. I asked her too if she’d seen them.
“Billy, let’s get you inside,” she said.
“You sure you didn’t see Elvis Presley?”
Minutes later, she told the school nurse, “He got hit hard. He’s seeing dead people.”
I cried all night when I realized the king, the movie star and the writer were never coming back.
My TT
Annie had been dreaming of a trip like this for years. A solo backpacking tour of the British Isles. A couple of days in Scotland, some in Ireland, then back over to Wales before finally ending up in Olde London Towne itself. It would be fun. It would be exciting. It would be an Adventure.
But she hadn’t planned on showing up during an annual Morris Dance festival.
Groups of grown men (and some women) paraded up and down the small high street of the Welsh town she happened to find herself in. This in itself wasn’t very extraordinary. What Annie couldn’t help but notice, however, was the colorful array of scarves, sashes, and handkerchiefs that the men carried. And of course there was the tinkling and clanging of various bells that the men had tied around their knees and ankles.
Annie replaced the postcards she had been browsing over into their slots on the rack outside the souvenir stand. (Over the past three weeks of her travels she’d become convinced that you couldn’t look through any postcard stand anywhere without coming across postcards of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and James Dean. Scenes of Local Color seemed to be of slightly less importance.) She’d been trying to sound out some of the 12-letter Welsh town names on some of the postcards, but the sound of the revelers and the bells had caught her attention.
Annie followed the groups of Morris dancers to the large town square. The groups divided themselves up and the celebration began.
As far as Annie could tell Morris dancing was a type of loosely choreographed square dancing. Each group of Morris dancers prided itself on its choice of the type of hankies waved around; the types of bells used; the rustic costumes its members wore; and the drinking songs sung as the dancers gamboled around.
After about fifteen minutes Annie began to notice subtle differences in the way the Morris dancers stomped around. Some, in fact, were almost rather graceful as they spun around each other, hankies held high, before jumping up and clicking their heels together. Others had about as much grace as a herd of wildebeest stampeding across the veldt.
The celebration lasted a couple of hours. By the time the sky began to darken most of the dancers, winded from their exertions, had retired to the local pub. Annie headed for the bus stop that would drop her off near her hostel.
That night, visions of fluttering scarves and jangling bells filled Annie’s dreams. Looking a little closer, she noticed that the dancers were Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and James Dean.
She woke in a cold sweat.
My TT: King of the Yellow Cabs (m)
King of the Yellow Cabs
“Where ya goin’?†ask the dark eyes, squinting at me in the cracked rearview mirror as the cab pulls away from the terminal. The meter already reads six dollars.
“Downtown, please. Fifth and Humboldt,†I reply.
“Right-o!†He punches a code into his grimy dashboard computer and lets out a long, low whistle.
“So, have you had a busy shift?†I try to sound interested.
“Today?†He raises his mono-eyebrow until it meets his hairline. “No, no Elvis today.†He cuts across three lanes on the bridge, ignoring the signs prohibiting lane changing during rush hour.
Did I hear Elvis? How did he get Elvis out of my question?
“So, not a busy day, then?â€
The radio drowns out my question. He jabs the station memory buttons in a panic, like he’s abusing a TV remote during Sunday afternoon channel surfing.
“C’mon, baby, I need my tunes,†he slaps the battered dash. “The King don’t come ‘til I got my tunes.†The more he hunts for music, the more he doesn’t watch the road. We just miss an unsteady grey-haired man in a crosswalk, and we come within millimeters of sideswiping a filthy Greyhound bus.
“Uh, excuse me,†I begin, not entirely sure I want to even discuss this with my cabbie, “but do you mean Elvis, as in Elvis Presley?â€
The mono-eyebrow in the rearview mirror flies up and disappears in the dark bushy hair on his forehead.
“’Course I mean Elvis Presley,†he retorts. “He comes every shift, sits right beside me,†he pats the passenger seat.
Okay, so my cab driver is a certified loony, and, by the way he sails through very red lights, I’m not sure he’s certified to drive.
“He first came to me in my tan Sierra, that was back in the eighties,†my driver starts. “He was wearin’ a white pantsuit, with rhinestones and sequins and wide lapels. I was so shocked I spilled my coffee all over his lap. But he didn’t mind a bit. All he said was to watch out for his blue suede shoes.â€
I stare out the window and kick myself for starting this conversation. At the Aaah, Movies on the corner of Fourteenth and Vine, I see Erin Brokovitch is out on DVD.
“He shows up about eleven and stays for over an hour,†the cabbie continues. “I started asking for the later shift to be sure I wouldn’t miss him. But I have to have my radio on, tunes from the fifties.â€
Uh-huh. Okay.
“He croons a few for me. Typically he starts with “Don’t Be Cruelâ€, followed by “Hound Dog†or “All Shook Upâ€. He always ends with “Are You Lonesome Tonightâ€, which always leaves me a bit weepy, an’ I’m not ashamed to admit it.â€
Just then the radio announcer came on the air.
“Stay tuned for over sixty minutes of commercial-free music… Coming up it’s the Elvis Presley all-request hour.â€
“Miss,†says the cabdriver to the rearview mirror, “you won’t mind if I don’t talk with you when Elvis is here, will you?â€
I grin. “Not a bit.â€
Lovely! Did you ever have...
imaginary friends? Did you remember the time when they vanished?
I did, and I don't. My family remembers where and when my imaginary friends (imaginary family, actually) first appeared. But I didn't notice when they left.
Sigh. Wonder what they're doing now... :)
Eyewrite
Only twelve letters? (m)
Wales has longer place names than that, like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch, meaning "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave" in Welsh.
I wondered how you'd work Elvis into Morris dancing... sneaky you :)
Eyewrite
LOL, I think I had that cabbie (m)
one time in Las Vegas. Okay, I’m not positive he had Elvis riding in the front seat with him but he definitely drove like a maniac and had the mono-eyebrow (loved that description, BTW). I did find one nit-pick: grey-haired to gray-haired.
Thanks for story,
Mac
Yes, I did (m)
Mine was named Mr. Carmen and I'm not really sure when he left either. I think what happened was that he stayed at the house where he first appeared when we moved. I have often wanted to research that house to see if an old man died there.
So tell me about your imaginary family. Sounds interesting!!!
Mac
Oops, you caught me...
grey is Canadian and gray is American. Tee hee :)
Eyewrite
Well, there was a mother named...
Mum-mums, a father named Tic-tic, a dog named Cancy and a brother named Brodder. They appeared on a beach holiday when I was young, and came on lots of adventures with me.
Years later my folks asked me about Mum-mums and Tic-tic and family and I told them they moved to Montreal (I pronounced it Mun-tree-all).
They were replaced with a series of large families (8+ kids); I often had an imaginary twin, and always a favourite brother aged 14.
Coming back from memory lane ...
Eyewrite
p.s. Mac, did you have siblings? I didn't, which may be why I created such large imaginary families :)
Hey Mac!
I still have those inner-child friends. They play havoc on my psyche all the time. Good story, worth the revisit, and I am impressed with the word shearing you did!
Happy New Year Mac, and may it be filled with wonderful blessings! Kat
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