Henrybohawk's Fotothing

You Can’t Come Inside

……….This is a true story that took place in 1950…..

Country singer Lonzo Green was a stranger in town that summer. He had brought his wife and two children all the way from Cherry Valley, Arkansas, to visit relatives in Tennessee.
But, as I say, he was a stranger in town, unaccustomed to the local customs and taboos. So Lonzo was a bit surprised to learn that a friend of his young nephew was under no circumstances to be allowed in the house.
His teen-age nephew Jimmy had proudly, excitedly spread the word around school that Uncle Lonzo had come to town and was staying with them, right there in the apartment on Lauderdale Court!
Naturally this impressed Jimmy’s young friends, especially one… a quiet, dark-haired boy of fifteen.
Jimmy came home that day and told Lonzo about the boy, how he had his own guitar but he didn’t know how to tune it. If Lonzo would just tune the guitar for him, the boy would be very grateful.
Lonzo said he’d be happy to oblige and asked Jimmy when his friend could come with his guitar.’
Jimmy’s eager smile fell. His friend could come by that afternoon, but Mom and Dad had made it a firm rule that the boy was not allowed inside. He was from the wrong side of the tracks, they’d explained, and some folks called him “white trash.” Perhaps he could meet Lonzo outside, but he was not to be permitted in the house.
Lonzo didn’t quite understand but he nodded, said nothing, and a couple of hours later he walked out into the sunlight and waited.
In a minute or two, a figure appeared at the end of the lane, a boy with dark hair, a battered guitar slung across his back.
As the boy walked closer, Lonzo studied the sensitive features, the timid sidewise glances at this better neighborhood, the sting of self-consciousness. Then he noticed that the boy’s guitar, obviously inexpensive, doubtless secondhand, was tethered by a piece of string.
They met at the curb, shook hands. The youngster gave a shy slight smile…and there, at the curbside, they sat down.
Lonzo took the instrument from the boy. Had no one ever shown him how to tune his guitar?
The answer came in a soft, polite Southern drawl: “No, sir.”
Lonzo demonstrated, placing his fingers over the proper frets. The boy watched intently. After the guitar was tuned, he thanked Lonzo and began to rise from the curb.
But Lonzo would not let him leave. He had tasted poverty in his own youth; he too had known the other side of the neighborhood barrier, which separated “acceptable” from “unacceptable” people. How much a little kindness from the right person would have meant back then!
So Lonzo asked the dark-haired boy to stay a while longer. The hesitant smile broke into a broad grin.
With the boy’s guitar, Lonzo played and sang a familiar hill country ballad…then another…and another. Shortly the haunting reticence in the boy’s eyes was gone, replaced by the joy of the music.
Cars streamed past them. The shadows of late afternoon grew long. After Lonzo had taught the boy to play a few chords on the guitar, the youngster thanked him again and was on his way.
He was not invited inside. Not them. Lonzo Green would never meet him again.
But the boy had left his company with a warm memory, a memory he would carry throughout the remarkable, radical changes in his own life. For someday, you would invite the dark-haired boy from the wrong side of town into your home.
And when he crossed those tracks for good he brought with him his guitar, the soft polite drawl, the hesitant smile.
That was twenty-nine summers…and thirty-three motion pictures…and four hundred million records …and a lifetime ago.
And if there is a happy ending, mixed in with our own bittersweet memories, it is that the boy was never, ever after, unwelcome again.
The young fellow who once upon a time couldn’t come inside was Elvis Presley.