Elvis - heard it at home, I was in the midst of working 7 days a week for a couple of months. Back in the January, I said to my mates down the pub " There's this Sky train thing starting, let's go to the States". Two of them remembered ( I didn't) so it came as a surprise when they asked me if I had got my passport yet? This was early June, being drunk but not pished I say " Not yet but I'm in".
So a week or 2 after my 21st, we're in New York. This is 3 lads from a village in the New Forest, the furthest I'd ever been was Knebworth to see the 'Stones one year and Pink Floyd the year before. Never been to an airport let alone on an airplane, took advantage of the duty frees and bought my first packet of fags. Anyway, we get on a Greyhound bus to San Francisco ( because although I'd never listened to the Grateful Dead, I'd read a book about them and knew they were from S.F.)
Not much Elvis or other dead people, I hear you say : )
Whilst there, poor old Bing Crosby died. This may not be a big thing to most people but my Dad was a massive Bing fan, we'd been brought up on him and his music ( I've still got over a thousand Bing 78s in the garage, inherited when Dad died). I had to buy and bring home the local Marin County newspapers, where it turned out Bing and the Grateful Dead lived ( not that they ever did any co-labs)
Also, by the time we had hitched hiked to L.A. a lot of Lynryd Skynyrd had died in a plane crash, now that really upset us and 'Skynyrd had been support to the 'Stones at Knebworth.
Strange, I can remember all that ( and more) but I can't remember what I was going to write at the start of this post : )
) Me and a few mates were walking up to the chippy at the top of Dale Road in Oakdale thinking wtf ? (I was actually in the process of trying to join).
