Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992                   TAG: 9203030360
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB MANN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SEEING HIM HURT ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE LONG WAIT

The words were those of Lucille Marberger, our best family friend, telling me and Mom that Elvis Presley had convoyed through tiny Cameron, Texas, the day before in what had to be 1958 or '59.

Elvis, one of two renegade heroes of my generation, was undertaking boot camp 30 miles away at Fort Hood, the nation's largest Army base. Hordes of us had driven to the base for a glimpse of The King - although then he was known simply as "Elvis," his stature as a world-class singer still in doubt. But military security turned us away, by the carload, every day.

Through the years I endured the pain, craving an audience with Elvis, suffering from the death of my second hero, rogue actor James Dean, and then, finally, letting Elvis slip to the same emotional graveyard where I had left Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and Tarzan.

But, near the end, I saw Elvis.

It was in his last year, and the place, of course, was Las Vegas.

I stayed too long in a nearby tavern and almost missed the act, somehow perhaps dreading my first personal viewing of the singer I had worshipped.

When finally I pushed into the crowded arena, I watched him at work.

It was masterful work. Even then, with 40 back in his rear-view mirror and his waistline out of control, he performed with a vigor and a seriousness that few entertainers muster at the height of their careers, let alone near the end.

He tossed out the silk scarves, sweated a ton of moisture and he studied his audience, not like a performer who has played to millions, but like a beginner still not certain he was making it and I did not think he would ever leave the stage.

I knew he didn't want to, not that night or any other.