Op-Ed Columns

Got an e-mail from my buddy John.

In it was a piece from the Wall Street Journal.

Headline read: "Mariah Carey Surpasses Elvis For No. 1 Billboard Singles."

"Further evidence," John wrote, "of the decline of Western civilization."

Far be it for me to take issue with my friend, mainly because he is right. However, I could not help but notice in John's observation a tincture of the same despair that was in my father's assessment of Elvis when he burst on the scene.

One look, one listen, and Daddy declared, "now there's a dirt road sport," which was how my father described someone who came from nowhere, likely as not would return there, and was appropriately dressed for the trip.

To my parents, Elvis was evidence of a decline just as profound as the one John bemoaned.

Elvis bothered my folks on a lot of levels, but the come-from-nowhere part may have disturbed them the most. Instinctively, they knew that Elvis was the product of circumstances that caused, maybe even required, him to violate most of the taboos they were teaching me to observe. And the fact that he seemed on his way to fame and fortune grated on their nerves all the more, for it confirmed what they feared — that he and his kind might be winning.

My parents were part of the Southern, small-town, white-bread middle class that carefully nourished an image of ancestral proprietary that was documented mostly with hand-me-down stories that got better the more they were told — all (I believed) to convince me that those who came before us were paragons of virtue and I should live up to their example.

My parents suspected that Elvis did not spring from roots such as ours. His ancestry was such that had he lived in our little town, dressed as he dressed and acted as he acted, someone in our circle would have said, "well, what would you expect from a Presley," and the rest of us would have understood.

One look at Elvis and my parents concluded (without saying so) that he was the sort of person who knew just enough about his forbearers not to want to know any more, and he had the good sense not to tell what he knew. Or worse yet, didn't care one way or the other. So it was not until fame had settled on him that someone took the time to trace and reveal the Elvis ancestry. What they found (or claimed to find) confirmed my parents' worst suspicions.

The Presleys started low and went down from there.

Just before the American Revolution they arrived — Scotch-Irish who tumbled through the Carolinas, turned west and ended up in Tennessee, where on the eve of the Mexican War his great-great-grandfather, Dunnan, was born.

No scion of the Old South or hero of the Lost Cause, Dunnan was conscripted off the farm and into the Confederate army, which he deserted as soon as he could. Rounded up and returned, he deserted again — this time for good. He also deserted his first wife (he had four) and left her with their daughter, Rosella.

By any measure, Rosella was a piece of work. She had 10 children by various fathers, none of whom she married. She moved or was moved frequently, which stands to reason. She left Tennessee, drifted into Alabama, and finally plopped down in Mississippi — sharecropping and taking in washing to support her family.

One of her brood was Jessie (born about 1890), who grew up to be a "hard-drinking, hard-working hell raiser" whose only ambition in life was "owning expensive clothes." Like his absentee father, Jessie wasn't much of a family man. But at least he married Minnie Mae before he deserted her and their son, Vernon.

Vernon married Gladys and settled in Tupelo, where he worked as a carpenter. Elvis was born there in 1935 (a twin brother died at birth).

Now, up to this point "trashy" pretty well describes the Presleys, and Vernon fell right into line. Arrested for forging a $4 check, he spent eight months in Parchman Penitentiary. Give credit where credit is due: he did not desert wife and child when he got out, but from that point on he pretty well gave up and let Gladys support the family.

And Gladys raised her son to be what he became, "a polite and humble gospel-singing Southern boy who loved his mama, greasy food and hanging out with the boys," (As my buddy John and his sweetheart Dale described him in 1001Things Everyone Should Know about the South — everyone should also own a copy.)

If only he, Elvis, could have just kept it to that.

But he couldn't.

And now he is second to Miz Carey.

Still, given the choice of listening to Elvis or Mariah, despite his ancestral inadequacies, I'd pick Elvis any day.

I'm just not sure I'd let my daughter date him.