ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
She is 45, poised, a middle-manager for a large local company. I'll call her Marlene.
She does not want her real name used - for reasons that will become clear, especially if you've ever parented, spent time with or actually been a 13-year-old girl.
``My daughter would kill me,'' she says in hushed tones over coffee at the Hotel Roanoke. ``If her friends read it, it would be highly embarrassing.''
This is a story for the ages. If puberty were a swimming pool, picture Marlene's daughter on the upward ascent of her first swan dive - arms splayed open, legs uneven.
It is not an Olympic 10. Not for Marlene's daughter, not for anyone.
Marlene remembers the precise day the Puberty People commandeered her daughter. ``It was exactly two weeks to the day after her 13th birthday.''
Her hormones kicked into fast-forward - like the instant opening of a flower on one of those time-lapse nature videos.
Suddenly Marlene's perfect little girl began to criticize the way she dressed, even the way she sat. She refused to hold her mother's hand in public and began spending pensive, moody periods of time holed up in her bedroom listening to (guitar riff, please) ...
``Hunka-Hunka Burnin' Love'' ... ``Don't Be Cruel'' ... ``Heartbreak Hotel'' ...
The King has come a-courtin' Marlene's daughter. Big time.
It got so bad last spring that Marlene and her husband had to forbid his presence in the house. ``When she came home with a D on a test, her dad had to put Elvis away in a box.''
Marlene giggles when she explains all this, especially the time her daughter got so mad about her parents' refusal to take her to Graceland, she huffed: ``If you won't take me, I'll go by myself! I'll just go on my HONEYMOON!''
Once her daughter replayed a portion of an Elvis movie 20 times in a row, the one where Elvis kisses his girl and tells her, ``Them ain't tactics, honey. That's just the beast in me.'' Marlene eventually got her to stop - by threatening that she'd wear out the spot on the video.
But underlying her daughter's listening, thinking and dreaming about Elvis lies some serious stuff.
Not an Elvis fan herself, Marlene was so worried about the girl's obsession, she consulted a friend with a background in psychology. She wanted to know: Is it normal for a 13-year-old to be head-over-heels about a dead entertainer?
Would you worry if she were so attracted to Mozart? he told her. What bothered her, she came to realize, is that Elvis is code for: sexual awakening.
A minister she sought advice from gave his blessing as well. ``He told us, `Hey, Elvis is harmless. But, Daddy, the one who's coming next won't be.'''
Marlene also confided in her friend, Tina Rolen, a counselor at the Hollins College Career Development Center - and, it turned out, also the mother of an Elvis freak. ``What we were talking about is how really deep our sexual nature is, and that it's with us from day one,'' Rolen says.
``We want so hard to deny it. But Elvis has this capacity to bring it out, no matter how old, or young, your daughter is.''
Rolen recalls being astounded by her daughter Sarah's ability to flirt - at age 6 months. ``She was on my shoulder, and she kinda peeked up at her uncle and looked at him and grinned, then buried her head in my shoulder, and then looked at him again.
``And I thought, `Oh no, what are you gonna be like when you're 16?!'''
When her daughter was 7, Rolen gave her an Elvis collector doll, which she promptly undressed.
Now 9, Sarah was asked to describe what she likes most about Elvis: ``He was a very active man. He was kinda crazy. His hair is awesome. His lips are smooth and pretty.
``He was a fine-looking man.''
Rolen believes it's important for parents to both honor and monitor their children's hero-worship phases. ``I think we need to be ever aware of some of the dangerous music coming out today. But to me, Elvis is a pure kind of attraction, romantic and unattainable.
``Part of me says thank God he's dead - and not living down the street somewhere!''
As for Marlene, she's learned to relish the Elvis experience through her daughter's eyes. She knows the downside of that swan dive into adolescence is not far away. She knows that when it comes it won't be possible to put the object of her only daughter's affections away in a box.
``I like her reaction to Elvis, the pure joy, the laughter,'' she says.
And then sighing, she adds, ``It's gonna be the last thing she shares with us so openly and freely.''
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. Nine-year-old Sarah Rolen, anotherby CNBElvis fan, has loved The King ever since was given a collector doll
when she was 7. color.