Notes on Two American Icons, Yogi and Elvis

As the great catcher turns 90, an online petition to the White House seeks the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Yogi Berra.

On the day that Elvis Presley died, an astonishing and mysterious phenomenon occurred shortly after his passing. 
 

Part One: Yogi.

Yogi Berra Celebrates 90th Birthday. Here's a news article from the big day itself:

LITTLE FALLS, N.J. (AP) — As Yogi Berra might say, when you turn 90 you should celebrate it right the first time. Please click Here. 

"As Yogi Berra turns 90, baseball tips its cap." For an entertaining collection of reminiscences and birthday greetings from his teammates and friends. Click Here. 

And finally.... 

We petition the White House to award Yogi Berra the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his military service and civil rights and educational activism. This is important: click Here to sign the online White House petition seeking Presidential Medal of Freedom for Yogi Berra.

Part Two: Elvis.

Dick Grob, who was in charge of the security detail that protected Presley, received an urgent phone call on the hot summer afternoon of August 16, 1977. The brief call to his home alerted Grob to the frightening news that Elvis was being taken to the hospital by ambulance in serious condition. Grob continues:

“Thoughts continued to race through my mind as I tried to assess the situation, Elvis was not at Graceland but en route to the hospital, so he must be “damaged.” It was becoming clear, I at least needed to go there first. That way I could assess the situation. If Elvis was going to be admitted, things would be handled as they were when he had entered the hospital before.

“As I raced at speeds up to 100 mph toward Baptist Hospital, only slowing for red lights and then speeding through them, I was mentally running through the thousands of different possible scenarios. I was still trying to fathom what might have happened. Not once did it occur to me that Elvis would be dead, that he had died at Graceland sometime before. Not once did this worst of all possible disasters pass before my eyes.

“Even with the air conditioning pouring out full blast I was already dripping wet with perspiration. Suddenly I felt a sudden and very different cold come over me. It wasn't like the cold one receives from an over-productive air conditioning system. This was an eerie unexplainable frostiness . . .

“Beside the chill, something else happened. I saw no visions, heard no words booming out loud to me from above, nothing like that, but I had a feeling, a mental thought. Through my mind passed a very clear meaningful message. It was more than my own thought, for I had been thinking any number of things but not anything close to this. It was as if someone were talking to me, telling me something, communicating with me. There was no sound. Whatever it was, was inside my head, in my mind. The clear, mental voice that I sensed, said: “Dick, slow down, it's over, there is nothing you can do now, don't kill yourself or anyone else because it is too late and there will be plenty of work to do.”

“Little did I realize then, how true that voice and its meaning was to be in the days ahead. I immediately slowed to the speed limit, below the limit. It's funny, as I look back on that drive now, I can recall the instant when I mentally felt and heard that voice. I still get shivers from it. This was a voice without a body, a voice without a tone, a voice without a face, yet there is no doubt in my mind who was conversing with me mentally. An immediate calm came over me and all the negative thoughts stopped passing through my mind at once. My mind was no longer cluttered with different disasters . . . My mission had dramatically changed. Deep in my mind I knew Elvis would perform no more for mortal man. His next performance would be backed by a band of heavenly angels. Somehow, I knew exactly what I would find when I reached the hospital, and that my entire reason for being would dramatically change in the next few minutes.” 

Excerpted, condensed and edited from pp. 195-200. The Elvis Conspiracy? by Richard H. Grob, Fox Reflections Publishing, 1979. Info on this book Here.

Posted 05/17/2015  www.frankrega.com