Im overwhelmed by the outpouring of good wishes for my birthday...thank you all! Now I want to share something with you, in honor of Elvis Week. Here is something I wrote about the Circle G Ranch, which has experienced a rebirth and is now open to the public. I know Elvis would have appreciated this, as he loved the ranch; we all enjoyed living there. Circle G Ranch Elvis was ripe for a change in his life. His growing dissatisfaction with his movie career and many of the songs that were packaged with each film caused him deep personal anguish and professional embarrassment. The Circle G Ranch came into his life at the perfect time. He longed to accomplish something completely on his own. “I’m going to buy a ranch,” Elvis told us, “where we can get away from it all. It’ll just be for us, Priscilla and Daddy, too, if he wants.” One afternoon in 1966 when Elvis was out riding his motorcycle in Mississippi, a few miles south of Graceland, he spotted a fifty-foot-tall concrete cross. When he inquired about it, he learned that the ranch on which the cross stood was for sale. So he bought it. A few months earlier Priscilla, who loved horses and riding, had encouraged Elvis to keep horses at Graceland. Priscilla enjoyed outdoors activities, and it’s to her credit that she persuaded Elvis to take up riding. Before long he had purchased several horses. Elvis wanted everyone to move to the ranch, which he named Circle G after Graceland of course. All of us guys came with our wives and kids, each family with its own mobile home and pickup or jeep and, of course, our own horses. The cost was enormous, but Elvis didn’t care. He was so happy on the 163-acre ranch. It symbolized a chance to make a new start, to live close to nature and to get away from the old routine. “The ranch is my dream,” Elvis said. “I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time. This ranch represents how I really want to live my life. Lord God, I can’t stand staying out in Hollyweird too long. ‘cause you can really lose yourself out there. But this place is back to the basics, and that’s what I need. I’m talking about hanging on to your very soul. “I’ll always keep Graceland, only the ranch keeps us in touch with the land and Mother Nature; this is for my damn health and peace of mind. And you know as well as I do, I don’t care how much money you got, you can’t buy something like that. And this is God’s country. You can see it, feel it; man, you can just breathe it in here. And this is for us, to be together and to teach us all how to live with the old fundamentals. This is going to be like our own commune, with no one to bother us.” Once the ranch was purchased for $500,000 Elvis’ burst of spending was dazzling, and Vernon was ready for the couch. Elvis brought all of us to a Western riding emporium and had us pick out complete riding outfits: saddles, boots, gloves, stirrups, reins and bits, even riding vests. In two days he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mobile homes, trailers, trucks and other ranch vehicles. He selected the furniture for the homes and bought the livestock which was added to the cattle already grazing on the property. One day after we had received a number of brand-new pickups, Alan Fortas said, “Elvis, everyone here already has a pickup, and there’s one extra. What should I do with it?” Without hesitating, Elvis replied - pointing to a crowd of fans who had gathered across the road - “Alan, damn, man, just give one away to one of those folks. Don’t bother me with details like that.” Outside of performing, I’ve never seen Elvis so involved, excited and downright happy. For a while during that hectic and memorable period we all got the rare chance to experience life anew, waking up to sky-blue days, taking in the sweep of nothing but rolling green hills, feeling the sharp, crisp air filling our lungs. It was simply Shangri-la with Elvis! The Circle G Ranch might have become Elvis’ sanctuary, his true home away from home, but it never happened. For one thing, within days of his arrival word got out. Within weeks the place became a tourist attraction, with carloads of people blocking the two-lane country roads. Soon the peaceful Circle G was as chaotic and congested as Hollywood Boulevard. The dream soon vanished. Ultimately the commune was doomed, because Elvis was bored with it. It was fine for a vacation, a week or two at a time, but he needed something more stimulating for a steady diet. The property was sold, and everything else went on the auction block: cattle, pickup trucks, tractors, mobile homes, all that could be salvaged. Elvis had no regrets. He loved the brief time we all shared at the Circle G Ranch. “It was a good idea, Larry; it was just the wrong time.”
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 17:45:43 +0000
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