Graced at Graceland

I know that most of you don’t know or haven’t seen my wife Ursula

, so I thought I would show you some pictures and tell you what she means to me. I know that it made be boring to some of you, so that’s why I’m posting it on my time line so that you can ignore it, if you wish. Yes, this is the lady that took me away from Memphis. The only thing I regret about leaving Memphis was the fact that I left all my friends behind and losing touch with them. I can remember the first time I saw her. I was standing up the hill behind the guardhouse next to the driveway at Graceland. I was talking to Harold Lloyd, Elvis’s third cousin and security guard at the Gates of Graceland, when she and her friend walked by me. She had dark short curly hair at that time and the prettiest eyes that I’d ever seen. They’re actually two different colors. I was enchanted and I’ve been that way ever since. We talked on the telephone for the next two years and saw each other as often as we could. I remember driving up one time to Mississauga, Ontario, and staying at a little hotel just off the 427 that was a mind blowing experience for a young man from Memphis, Tennessee. Toronto, Ontario would probably be like a mixture of Washington, DC and New York City and I had never been outside of the southern U.S. at that time. There are all nationalities; British, German, Polish, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and any nationality you can think of. I had never experienced such an exotic blend of languages in my life. At the first restaurant we went out

to, we sat down at you could hear them all. It was a totally different culture that the U.S. We’re known as a melting pot rather than a cultural mosaic of nationalities and languages. Everyone there seemed to be in their own little worlds and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada there were sections of the city that had their specific ethnic groupings much like China Town in San Francisco. I also had never experienced one lady that was so gracious and concerned about me. She was attentive to my every need and I must say she still is. It’s almost like she thinks of me before herself. I try to do that for her but I am a man of course, so I don’t always match what she does for me. She had let her hair go straight and longer by this time and she was even more beautiful than the day we had met. She took me out to a multitude of restaurants and we went to Niagara Falls. She introduced me to her world as if she was saying would you like to live here. I wasn’t quite thinking about that yet at that time but I had let someone else leave once before and didn’t follow, so I guess I was trying to figure out if I could make it in this strange and wonderful new world. We were becoming friends, we enjoyed each other’s company to the utmost. I knew there was something special there, something that I craved was being fulfilled by her. It was strange for me not to feel lonely. Around her I felt peace

, I felt as if the rest of the world didn’t matter and I was in heaven. She had given more of herself to me than anyone else had ever done and I’m not talking about her physical self, I’m talking about her feelings, her love, her soul, her friendship, it was all given to me freely. How could I leave, but I had obligations that I had to take care of before I could truly make any decision. I had my daughter to think about back in Memphis, my parents were still a large part of my life at that time and my mother did depend on me. After I had announced to my family what I was contemplating, my mother, who I thought would be the most hurt and not wanting me to leave, pulled me aside and told

me that other countries had strange ways and not to let them change me. My mother was understandably concerned about her baby leaving to go so far away apart from her but she never tried to talk me out of it or tell me how bad a decision this would be as she had once before. I remember after I had asked Ursula to marry me, she came back down to Memphis to meet my family, my brother and his family, my father and mother and my daughter. Now I want to preface this by saying that Ursula looked exactly like she did in the pictures that you’re going to see but, however, my mother pulled me aside and told me that Ursula looked like she could possibly get fat as she grew older and that I was never to tell her that she was fat because if I did my mother would wear me out. I never have told Ursula how to dress or wear her hair or anything negative concerning her looks and I have never and will never call her fat. I have to say thanks to Rick and Sherry who were my closest friends at that time and were so wonderful about helping me out with all of the obligations and understanding what it would take for me to leave them. I knew that this marriage was right and I knew that Ursula was finally the right girl for me. When I got there Ursula had already picked out an apartment for us. It was a split level apartment in a small building in Mississauga, Ontario and it was near the Go train for Ursula to commute into Toronto’s for her job and it was near the auto malls where I found a job as a car salesman. This apartment was small but it was so large in our hearts, it was our first place and

it was perfect for us. She introduced me to foods that I had never had before such as liverwurst and Kielbasa and various German sausages and escargot. I remember a bread that we used to be able to get from the Baltic Bakery and at a deli on Lakeshore Road that had an almost cracker type crust but the most airy like bread in the interior. It was wonderful and we have not been able to find it in the last few years, but the next time we go to Canada I will be on the hunt for this bread. We’ve had many adventures together. We have traveled at least 1/5 of the world together. We’ve visited Africa, the British Isles, Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, Canada and the U.S. The thing that made these travels what they were was her because she has a passion for travel. I share her passion but not as strongly as her. It’s the one thing that she would never want to give up. I have to tell you, the one thing that I would never want to give up is her. We’ve had other strange adventures together, as I’ve told most of you, for I was a huge TV fanatic and I love movies, good ones and bad ones. She started following me to movie and TV conventions. We’ve met everyone from Kay Linaker who, besides her appearance in Charlie Chan and other well known earlier movies, was also the author of “the Blob”, yes the one that most of you saw on Fantastic Features, she wrote it. We’ve met Frankie Thomas who was Tom Corbett Space Cadet on the early television show and co-starred in my

favorite of all times, the 1930’s Nancy Drew movies. He was my first contact with anyone that had known my favorite actress of all time, Bonita Granville. She followed me to other conventions as well where we met other stars. My point is she accommodated my eccentric interests such as aircraft, flying and museums and we’ve been to the world’s greatest museums. I know that these things are not everyone’s cup of tea but she has learned to enjoy these things with and I with her. She has made my world a wondrous journey that I would never have imagined having and can’t imagine not having her in my world.