Herbed Chicken & Rice Salad with a Lemon Honey Mustard Dressing

August 16, 1977, is a day that many of us will never forget. It was the day my dad opened my bedroom door, and while I played with my barbie dolls my sister had given all Dorothy Hamill haircuts, he announced that Elvis was dead. He was only 42 years old. I was the same age as Lisa Marie. I heard my mother sobbing downstairs and thought this is what a broken heart must sound like. In a matter of hours, the shock of his death had registered around the world.

I remembered my father loaded the family in the car and drove to the local convenience store where we each were allowed to pick one Elvis souvenir. I chose a life-size poster of the King rhinestone belted and caped. That poster remained on the back of my bedroom door long after I went to college, and I cried as an adult decades later when I found out that my mother had removed it.

As the news of Elvis' death spread across the country, radio stations immediately began to play his records. Some stations quickly organized tributes to Elvis while others simply played his music at the request of listeners, many of whom were in a state of shock over his sudden death.

Some people called their favorite radio stations just because they wanted to tell someone their stories about the first time they'd heard Elvis sing or to talk about how much his talent and his music meant to them.

In the same way that many people remember exactly where they were when they heard President John F. Kennedy had been killed, most of Elvis' fans remember where they were the day Elvis died. For me, the news came over like a ton of bricks, and with that came the mourning for Lisa Marie, too.

I remember the night Elvis’ last concert was aired days after his death. The whole family gathered in the basement. My mother was ironing (or trying to) but ended up drying the same shirt repeatedly because of all the tears that fell. Even as a child, I knew the bloated figure of the man on TV wasn’t the Elvis I wanted to remember.

The way the major television networks handled the news of Elvis' death illustrated his enormous popularity and the tremendous impact he had on America, something few realized until he was gone. The King was dead, and it even as a child, I knew it was the real day music died.

In school, we all listened to President Carter reading a statement while our teachers mourned.

"Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique and irreplaceable. More than 20 years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense, and he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of his country."

The void he left was impossible to gauge. At 9, I just felt so lost, I felt shattered. I feel like I lost a very, very, close, very, dear friend, part of my own family.

It didn’t matter a great deal whether you liked Elvis or not. He changed our lives.  Montovani played Charmagne.  We heard it a thousand times on the radio, in elevators, and at the dentist's office. But it didn’t change anything. Elvis Presley did.  He changed the way then teenage America thought about things: public entertainment, popular attitudes, toward behavior, and attitudes about dressing and sex. And so when he died today from a heart ailment at the age of forty-two, people felt a sense of loss whether they ever liked his singing or not.

I got through that first night thanks to the community of broadcasters who wouldn’t let this death go unnoticed.  The fans kept up the outpouring of sympathy on through the funeral a few days later.  That affection for Elvis has kept on going ever since.

Soon, we would read of allegations of drug abuse, physical decline, and just plain weird things that went on during those final years.  The image of a slick rock-and-roll icon was tarnished for a long time.

But the music endured.  And with time, the entertainment industry has found a place for the man who changed things.

We have Elvis Presley to thank for changing the landscape of music. The King may have left the building, but I like to think he is up in up in heaven shaking things up. And I, for one, want a front-row seat when I get there.