Most days, when the weather’s agreeable, on the corner of Santa Fe Avenue and Sixth Street in downtown Pueblo, there’ll be a life-sized statue of Elvis Presley standing in front of Cardinelli’s Custom Stained Glass and Antiques store. It portrays The King in one of his classic poses:  the guitar is in mid-strum, strapped tautly across his shoulders, his knees cocked inward while balancing on the balls of his feet. He’s sporting a white blazer over a pink shirt and, of course, the signature pompadour. It’s the Elvis on the cusp of his fall, before Presley’s Rock & Roll lifestyle left him a sad parody of himself, a lifestyle that would kill him 40 years ago at age 42.

I can’t say I’m much of a Presley fan. I’ve never been to Graceland or owned one of his records, although “Calling Elvis,” the song by Dire Straits, is in my iTunes music library. But I do confess to enjoying a handful of his songs. Elvis’ “Burning Love,” and “In The Ghetto” come to mind. I quoted “Suspicious Minds” in a college essay about Leo McCarey’s 1937 film, “The Awful Truth.” And those opening lyrics in “All Shook Up” are seared into my memory (Well bless my soul/what’s wrong with me/I’m itching like a man on a fuzzy tree), goofy as they are. And yes, in 2009 I downloaded that photo of Elvis and President Richard Nixon from the Library of Congress. It appears daily in the Kodak digital frame that plays an array of photos in our family room.

Perhaps I’m more of a fan than I’m willing to admit.

I do recall watching the Elvis Hawaii concert on t.v. as a kid but don’t remember much more than that. I can tell you where I was Aug 16, 1977, the day Presley died: at my buddy Charlie Stroud’s house on Badger Road in Santa Rosa. Charlie’s older brother Jerry wandered into to Charlie’s room and told us “Elvis Presley died.” I asked, “what from?” Jerry said “they don’t know,” then wandered out. I think it’s the only time I heard Jerry speak. And I was working at the Coos Bay (Oregon) World newspaper and taking pictures at the North Bend Post Office in 1993 the morning the U.S. Postal Service officially released the Elvis stamp.

As a teenager, my musical tastes were dictated by San Francisco radio stations like KFRC and KSAN. The music of Elvis Presley didn’t get a lot of play from either of them. Presley, to me, was tabloid fodder and kitsch more than anything else. He’d always be featured on the cover of the National Enquirer or somewhere in People magazine for some dalliance (real or imagined) or practicing karate or both and always wearing those over-sized sunglasses.

To me, when Presley died, he was just another entertainer who died of an overdose. I suppose that’s when the cult of Elvis Being Everywhere was born.