The Day I Caught a Glimpse of Little Elvis

In Southwest Virginia, the big city is Roanoke. This, of course, is a little odd, as Roanoke has a population of just over 300,000 people. Still, it has an international airport, two ballet companies, four malls, a few hospitals, some museums, and a couple of interesting tourist attractions, so I guess that it could be worse. I mean, it's not Muncie.

One of my favorite hobbies is playing tourist in my own hometown. I buy a travel guide, list all the interesting things to see, and seek them out. When I started doing this a few years ago, the first thing on my list was Miniature Graceland. I read about it in Moon Guides' Virginia Handbook, by Juilan Smith. He wrote: "Miniature Graceland is [...] the product of hours of loving work. Don and Kim Epperly have filled their modest backyard with doll-sized replicas of major buildings in Elvis' life, topped by Graceland itself, complete with car museum."

Clearly, I couldn't resist. However, a place like Miniature Graceland deserves special treatment, so I saved it for the very end of the milennium. On December 31, 1999, accompanied by my sister Ella, my friend John, and John's creepy friend, whose name I've (mercilessly) forgotten, I traveled the hour down 81 to Roanoke. We started our pilgrimage at the Roanoke Star, which is the largest neon star in the world. Supposedly, Elvis also visited the star on a trip to Roanoke. Regardless, the star gave us an opportunity to take lots of Soviet-style pictures of ourselves and marvel at what, truly, is a huge eyesore. While up there, we also noticed what we thought was a group of Amish driving a compact car. On closer observation, though, we realized that they were only Mennonites.


On the way back down Mill Mountain, we stopped in on Graceland. I think we drove past the place a few times, as it is, essentially, the side yard of a non-descript house in a very non-descript neighborhood. Finally, though, we found the place, parked, and silently piled out of the car. Reverently, we approached the shrine. The first thing we saw was the statue of Elvis. The Epperly's had, apparently, decided that any shrine to Elvis needs an idol. There's was a full-sized gold replica of the man himself. However, when we got nearer we realized that the statue appeared to be a mannequin of an asian man with a huge pompadour and a lot of gold paint. Unwilling to let reality get in the way of style, however, we acknowledged that this was a true stroke of genius, dropped a dollar or two in the little gold-painted collection box, and went on our merry way.

Miniature Graceland was, to be honest, kind of a disappointment. While we enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves from forced-perspectives, the joy of impersonating Godzilla in Memphis quickly dissipated, particularly as we noticed that Miniature Graceland was...well, a little seedy. The grounds were overgrown, the house needed a paintjob, and the Barbie dolls that the Epperlys had put in the little buildings were somewhat threadbare. On further reflection, however, we realized that the Epperlys had, actually, captured the true spirit of Graceland: seedy, overgrown, a little tacky, and in need of a fresh coat of paint.

Happy once again, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, where we had our last official meal of the milennium.

I've since returned to Miniature Graceland, and found it to be even more overgrown and seedy. However, on the bright side, Don Epperly's son Mike has taken control of Miniature Graceland and is in the process of rebuilding and refinishing the houses. So there's hope for mini-Elvis after all.