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Aloha, Elvis Week is coming

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Aloha, Elvis Week is coming… so put on your blue suede shoes.

Of course every week should be Elvis Week but Graceland throws a special party for the King every August from the 9th-17th.

And this year’s celebration is timely with it being 55 years since his iconic TV comeback special (August 14).

And half a century since his Aloha From Hawaii via satellite (August 16).

When folks from all around the globe got to see Elvis which would have included a Howiya from Alloa.

Whadya mean that’s a gratuitous Scottish reference… well, this is my site.

And besides Elvis did have Scottish roots while the only time he visited the UK he stopped off at Prestwick Airport.

A pilgrim’s tale

Baby, we love ya: Elvis, Priscilla and Lisa Marie

Now Elvis was taken from us 46 years ago on August 16.

And all who loved him and his music flocked to his house Graceland, Memphis in his adopted state of Tennessee.

Including the impersonators who have been spending a lifetime channeling him and will be competing against him in Elvis Week.

In truth, we all of us, have been making, or planning to make that pilgrimage ever since.

Elvis’s little girl

This year is a particularly poignant one for the Presley family… and that includes us.

Because Lisa Marie has now taken her place for eternity in the Meditation Garden close to Elvis.

Elvis’s only daughter would oft share a particular memory of her dad and it’s on the audio loop around Graceland.

That the family and guests in the dining room would hear Elvis clinking his jewellery before they’d see him.

Elvis always singing

You can hear Elvis still when you visit Graceland with his songs ringing out as they would have done then.

Elvis did in fact sing right up until the end, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain and Unchained Melody.

In the Piano Room which you can visit and conjure up his spirit.

There will be no shortage of special guests paying homage to the King this month.

With performances and recollections from a wide array of artists from Jay Osmond to Dennis Quaid.

The Candlelight Vigil

While there will be a celebration of Lisa Marie (August 15), held ahead of the Candlelight Vigil.

Jerry Schilling, along with other special guests to be announced will remember her.

Through music, their own personal stories, photos, and videos.

For those of us who can’t get there you can catch it all on a Virtual Elvis Week.

They are offering three packages… an Elvis Super Fan pass for ¢225, Elvis Fan Package for $130 and an Elvis Tribute Pass for the same price.

So, Aloha, Elvis Week is Coming. So get ready, swivel that pelvis, pout that lip and rock-a-hula baby.

America, Countries, Cruising, Deals

Cruise through the American Civil War

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They’ve come a long way from the ironclads, and luxury liners are by far the safest way to cruise through the American Civil War.

American Cruise Lines have launched a history tourist’s dream, a 35-day Civil War Battlefields Cruise.

Where you’ll get to travel in the footsteps of the flower of America from the Union and the Confederacy.

ACS will bring you to every significant battlefield of the Civil War and 13 states.

So you’ll visit Fort Sumter, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Antietam and more.

And you’ll sail along the Mississippi River, the Tennessee River, the Potomac River, the East Coast Intracoastal Waterway and Chesapeake Bay.

All on board American Melody, American Symphony and American Eagle.

In the footsteps

The Virginian: At ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s statue in Manassas

Of course, as much as we’ve absorbed of the American Civil War from our history degree.

And visits to Manassas and military hospitals in Virginia, and Tennessee, Mississippi and the buffalo soldiers in Texas.

There is nothing quite like being guided by someone with family history in the fight.

Davis’s boy

On a pedestal: Jefferson Davis in New Orleans

With the theme cruise led by Bertram Hayes-Davis, no less, the great-great-grandson of President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis.

Civil War buffs will get to experience the Anaconda/Vicksburg Campaign, the Western Theater, General Sherman’s March, Union Advantage/Naval Power, the Eastern Theater and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Cruise ship routes are connected via motor coach, with all transfers included.

The Big Easy

And you’ll get the added bonus of a complimentary pre-cruise stay in New Orleans, The Big Easy.

Hotels between your cruise, daily excursions and entertainment and all meals and drink.

And we know from our previous Battlefields and Booze adventures in these parts that the soldiers of the day loved their liquor.

So you’ll leave New Orleans on May 4, and end in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on June 6.

Where, we’d be disappointed if you didn’t channel your best Abraham Lincoln and deliver these immortal lines…

‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’

All of which freedom is priceless though alas for the rest of us you’ll maybe have to dig into the exchequer.

With your cruise through the American Civil War setting you back from $24,700.

America, Countries

Remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers

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Sixty years ago this year was born one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement… we’ll remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers.

Medgar Evers was at the vanguard of the fight for equal rights but was mowed down in his driveway in Jackson in 1963.

Which you can see for yourself at his house in the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

You’ll notice that Myrlie is honoured too in the naming of the national monument.

Because 2332 Margaret W Alexander Drive was her house.

Where she would take protection with their three children from the threat to theirs and Medgar’s lives.

It would appear an insignificant family bungalow unless you knew it were Medgar and Myrlie’s home.

But you get a chill sense of what happened here when Medgar unloaded his posters in the carport.

Said to be the only place the gunman, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith Jr could have shot him.

The trail leads here

Their home was, and still is, a place of pilgrimage for those on the Civil Rights Trail but back in 2018 when we visited as part of MLK50 it had yet to receive that honour.

MLK50 was, of course, the 50th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King‘s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

With its climax the opening of the Two Museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

Myrlie trumps the Donald

Which then-President Donald Trump made a personal visit to back in 2018 amid some dissent from his opponents.

With our party and the other invited guests treated to Myrlie Evers-Williams’ addresses to the gathered numbers.

And those lucky few, myself included, who managed to gain a private audience with Myrlie later hearing her speak passionately of her thoughts on his disruptionist rule.

What took place since then and the recognition of the home as a national monument by Donald Trump we don’t know.

But having met the force of nature that is Myrlie Evers I should imagine that he might have found it difficult to say no to the Marvellous Myrlie.

All of which we’ll be reflecting on as we honour and will always remember Mississippi’s Man for Evers and his indomitable Myrlie.

And point you in the direction of their home while also paying tribute to his great friend Martin Luther King in Memphis.