(Colonel Tom Parker and his “attraction,” Mr. Elvis Presley)
The Writer’s Section at Refuge Farm was delighted that Arrias had penned (pecked?) a thought piece on the nature of our unique American society. First was that the Chairman was not shouting for new copy early on a Monday. Arrias noted the role of Col. Tom Parker, the astute manager of the Elvis career. Parker noted that a refusal to accept service in the draft-supported U.S. Army of those days would damage the early break-out career phase of a remarkable performer.
But of course there is more. The title of “Colonel” that Mr. Parker used is just part of it. The truth? Goodness, we have little of that these days. Colonel Thomas Andrew Parker was Dutch-born. Wiki claims his real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, born on 26 June, 1909, in a town called Breda. He was only a lad of five when the German war machine passed through and was still a child when the guns fell silent for a while. He emigrated illegally to the United States at the age of 20, on the edge of the Roaring Twenties collapse. In age, he was not much different than Elvis when he received his draft notice to appear and serve.
Parker was a Colonel in the same way many luminaries of Kentucky were: by pure fiat. He resided in this country without legal status for the remainder of his life and never left “our” country’s borders. He passed away on 21 January in the most American town of that moment in 1997, at Las Vegas, Nevada. We were starting to talk about “Y2K” as the looming catastrophe then.
There were other panics in progress at the time. The impending Ice Age had not completely turned into the “Warming Crisis!” That major concern lasted another decade or two, and is still around as “Climate Change,” which is a happy compromise since virtually everyone agrees that it does. It is interesting. The Europe from which the Colonel fled has committed to “renewable” energy in a much more positive manner than we Americans have. The experts tell us may have a disastrously cold winter coming up, and the former Great Idea of “renewable” power is provided by windmills whose construction takes more energy than they produce over their working lives, or the vast swatches of solar panels that rest quietly under clouds and all the long European winter nights. But of course, we have now arrived at a position that amounts to many people yelling about the weather.
We support that, of course, since it rained most of the day yesterday. But we have to live the days as they come.
This morning, in his usual fashion, Arrias applied critical analysis to the times and perception of the role of “service” and “the Draft” in the same manner as yelling at the clouds. Both terms were reflections of what it meant to be an American at the time. The Draft was a palpable ritual that applied to all 18-year-old males, if we can be forgiven for using such an archaic term, and obviously affected the majority of non-men as well. Colonel Parker took a rational approach to the national ritual, even though he was not a shared participant nor did he aspire to be one, except in a purely honorary fashion. He was accurate. Elvis was celebrated for his service.
Understandably, the Colonel never left the United States due to his legal status. The decision not to prosecute him for his illegal status is now one that has interesting context. There are estimates that literally millions of “irregular” “visitors” are flooding across what had been our southern border. The opening is accompanied by aspersions on the Border Patrol for attempting to defer them, quite the opposite of the praise for Private Presley. Where the Colonel recognized most Americans would celebrate the modest- but shared- sacrifice of his young Hound Dog crooner, he just purchased a title and moved on.
Had his musical boosterism been a decade later, it might have been quite different. Elvis would have been unlikely to raise his right hand to join a military machine that left “4 Dead in Ohio!” right?
Times change rapidly these days. In fact, the Writer’s Section got a cautionary note from Legal, indicating that characterization of the status of “migrants” is no longer open to discussion. We were advised that other, less pejorative terms should be used for the tide of undocumented… “Invaders,” grumbled Splash. That was answered by a brief silence as the Section looked around briefly to see if there were any outsiders to hear him, or worse, representatives from Legal or HR. Then, safety assured, there was laughter, since apparently someone is welcoming them as warmly as Colonel Parker was.
Loma waved languidly at the cardboard Footnotes sign leaning against the Loading Dock wall. The one in front had bold magic marker printing saying: “We support legal immigration!” That was part of an effort to defer attacks of “Racism!” which were levelled at some of the humorous accounts of the surrender to anarchy that appears to be national policy.
Of course, illegal Colonel Tom could be judged by the fact that he never had a U.S. passport, nor did he seek to have his status transferred to that of a naturalized citizen. He thus benefitted from the “patriarchy” and “privilege” we hear a lot about these days. To be clear, to the best of our knowledge, we all are descended from immigrants who met some sort of legal standard, though we are not completely sure what they were at the time.
Alanna Nash was a biographer who wrote a book about the Colonel. In her account, “The Colonel” could be regarded either as “as a meretricious and evil confidence man, or as a brilliant marketer and strategist, as remarkable as the star he managed.” Certainly there was no figure in all of entertainment who was more controversial, colorful, or larger than life than Tom Parker. Nor, as he managed the adult Elvis through films and his big come-back, was his status as (what was termed then as “an illegal alien”) an issue.
“I got sent to Millington on a Navy thing one time, after the Assignments branch moved from Washington to Tennessee,” said Rocket. “I had an afternoon to kill, and went to Graceland. It was pretty cool.”
Loma laughed. “And it was all completely legal, with just a little tax help.”
DeMille looked stern for a moment, then smiled. “We agreed not to talk about taxes until we know what they are.” He paused and looked around the circle of disheveled cisgendered patriarchal reprobates as a queue for performance:
“What could go wrong?” we said in unison, just the way DeMille had taught us.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com