When I was growing up, it seemed as if all of my friends had been to Ocean City at least once. For many of them, trips over to the Eastern Shore were a regular part of their summer. But this was something that my family never did, and it somehow felt like one of the more disappointing omissions from my childhood. I'd finally seen the ocean by the summer of 1975, when my mom, sister and I spent several weeks traveling the southeast quarter of the country, including a visit with family in Jacksonville Beach. But there was something in the reverential way that my peers referred to Ocean City that made it still seem like something magical was missing from my life. Even those who insisted that Rehoboth Beach or the Outer Banks were better seemed to take it for granted that Ocean City experiences were part of being normal.
I'm a 12-year product of Catholic schools, so naturally in high school I became friends with kids from other parishes. I had not fit in very well in my own grade school, and therefor had not gotten involved in the Catholic Youth Organization activities that always seemed like they were for more popular kids. I know now that this was largely my perception rather than reality, but there are two ways CYO touches on this tale. First, CYO trips were one of the means by which my peers had occasionally visited Ocean City, underscoring my experience of both not fitting in and not doing this thing that was part of all of the other (cooler) kids' lives. And ironically, a CYO trip with a nearby parish became the way I made my first sojourn there, as well.
It was late in the summer before my senior year, and one of my high school friends was an officer (president? secretary?) in his CYO. They apparently had an Ocean City bus trip planned for which they'd had a rather underwhelming response, and there was a lot of room on the bus, so I received an early-morning last-minute call asking if I'd like to go. I was pleasantly surprised when my normally protective mom gave the okay; either my sister was old enough to be on her own for the day while mom worked or she had other plans for hanging out with a friend. This easing of mom's cautiousness would have disastrous ramifications before the year was over, but it worked out well for me on this day.
I think I my best friend may have gone along that day, too, but I don't remember that part for certain. I remember doing rides, playing arcade games, hanging out near the south end of the boardwalk, having lunch at a (King Arthur? Robin Hood?) themed smorgasbord, all of the souvenir shops which were starting to lower their prices to move their merchandise before the end of the season. About an hour or so before we were to meet back at the bus for the (then) three-hour drive back, the skies suddenly opened with a tremendous downpour. I think that my flip-flops may have given out as I ran through the deluge. I was completely drenched, and the cloudburst brought temporarily cooler temperatures, too, so I was uncomfortably chilled. I remember examining my wallet, trying to figure out if I was going to have to replace it. The storm passed quickly.
Looking up through the bus windows I saw a vision that has stuck with me ever since. There on the street corner was a middle aged man - way younger than I am now, of course - with his shirt unbuttoned, his long, black hair soaking wet from the storm and hanging down to his shoulders, leaving an impression like smeared mascara. I don't know, maybe he really was wearing face makeup that had run in the rain, but that's probably just the impression I'm left with from his stringy, wet, black hair. I think my first visit to Greenwich Village that fall may have been the first time I actually saw a guy in makeup. But I guess I'll never forget how this man's face was unabashedly racked with sorrow as he sobbed and wailed and cried, all while cradling in his left arm a black velvet portrait of Elvis Presley.
And that is how I discovered that Elvis had died.
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