My Elvis Memory

I never really camped much. Maybe 5 or 6 times in my whole life. A jewish kid from the big city doesn't get many opportunities to camp.
Every summer from the time I was 7 until probably 12, we went to day camp for the summer. It was fun. We did fun kid things all day and it kept us out of trouble. There were no video games or the internet in those days.
One year, we went on an overnight real camping trip for 4 days. It was August of 1977. I was 12. This was true wilderness. No phones, no tv, no nothing. We slept in tents we put up, and we cooked our food in a fire pit we built and lit ourselves. It was a great time.
When we got back to town, we were dropped off at home. As I came through the front door, my mom was crying and our next door neighbor Adele was as well. I had no idea what had happened. We were removed from all civilization for four days.
I turned on the tv, and I saw that somewhere within that weekend, Elvis had died.
To my mom, Adele, and their generation, this was a devastating blow. In the days to come, they would go out and buy his greatest hits, and listen to them over and over, day after day, for weeks.
So, when I think of Elvis, part of me will always think about my mother, and that camping trip I took.