Prior to 8.00 a.m. I heard “Crying In The Chapel” on a tribute to Elvis that was being played on 2SM. Following our walk, I shaved and showered before eleven o’clock and while Tiki was in the shower I used her Sanyo radio-cassette recorder to begin to listen to another tribute to Elvis, this time on 2UW. It was originally broadcast a few years ago in separate episodes, however, this time, they have been combined to provide a programme that is destined to last for thirteen hours.
Elvis actually recorded the single, “Heartbreak Hotel”, on the fifth of January, in 1956. In June of that year he recorded what was to become the year’s biggest seller. It featured “Hound Dog” on one side and “Don’t Be Cruel” on the other. He also appeared in his first film, “Love Me Tender”, which also proved to be massively successful. Nineteen fifty-seven proved to be just as fruitful, producing such hits as “Too Much”, “All Shook Up”, “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear”, “Loving You” and “Jailhouse Rock”.
An edition of the series, “Westwind To Hawaii”, which stars Van “Surfside 6” Williams, was on Channel Ten from eleven o’clock. Tiki watched “Cher” at noon.
We left to collect “Mum”, “Dad” and Tiki’s younger sister, Wendy. As we neared the house we learned of the death of Groucho Marx, via the radio and a news bulletin at 3.00 p.m. The American comedian was a star of film, radio and television. He was eighty-six years of age.
“Dad” had experienced a frustrating morning for when he had attempted to launch his son’s new yacht, the foot-operated handbrake on the Holden ‘Torana’ had jammed and it had taken the pair an hour to release it.
I drove to Manly by a quarter past four and allowed the others to alight in Eustace Street, near the Manly Hotel. This allowed me to drive on, alone, to visit my elderly father. “Brutus” — as I had nicknamed him in the mid-sixties after I had had to study “Shakyspeare’s” ‘Julius Caesar’ in high school — appeared plump and pale, and said that he had had another ‘turn’ during the week. He continued by stating that his doctor had informed him that he could ‘go’ at any time, and with that showed me where he had hidden money in various places throughout his small home unit; in particular the kitchen. He even mentioned that he is thinking of getting a second-hand, portable television. This is something that he has not been in favour of, until now.
He appeared to be agitated over a letter he had written to the Commissioner of Strata Title, seeking to acquire the land outside the window to his bedroom because, as he worded it to me, the ‘old duck’ from next-door continues to water the geraniums she had planted there; much to his vexation.
While he gave me a biblical lesson — I’d like a dollar for each time he has told me: ‘You aren’t educated until you’ve read the Bible’ — I read articles on the late Elvis Presley, and Jacqueline Bisset from his copy of “The Melbourne Herald”.
I left at twenty past five and drove past K’s Snapper Inn where I noticed that “Mum” and “Dad” were occupying second place in the queue that had already formed. “Return To Sender” played on 2UW’s ‘Elvis Special’ as I drove into the car park in Wentworth Street, where I was met by Tiki and Wendy. “Dad” felt gelid, for he had waited in front of the restaurant since five o’clock. He wanted to pay half of the bill, as he and “Mum” had both ordered lobster mornay, however, Tiki and I refused and paid the total bill of fifty-two dollars and eighty cents. It was because of this that “Dad” had his twenty cents out before we left Manly, to pay for the toll on the Harbour Bridge.
We each had a glass of ginger ale at Tiki’s parents’ before I hinted to her that I thought that it was time to leave. We arrived home at half past nine and watched the film, “Sink The Bismark”, from 1960. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter.