“Oh, Judy, there’ll never be anyone else, dear, but you.”
It’s a line Judy Riser has heard countless times before. And yet – no matter how many times she hears Elvis Presley crooning the words to his pop classic, “Judy” – it never gets old.
“His songs are timeless,” says Riser, who has been greeting students in the College’s cafeterias since 1975. “People will never stop playing his music and listening to his songs.”
Riser herself hasn’t stopped listening to the King since she first heard him on the radio when she was only 15.
“I liked his music and I liked his voice,” she remembers. “My mother said, ‘That sounds terrible,’ and I said, ‘I bet he’s good looking.’ And he was.”
The more Elvis Presley she heard (and saw), the more she liked – and the more her mother disapproved.
“My mother didn’t like him at all,” Riser says, shaking her head. “She didn’t understand why I liked him. She’d turn over in her grave if she knew I had all that stuff in my house.”
By “stuff,” Riser means Elvis memorabilia: the Elvis plates in her kitchen, the Elvis bath towels in her bathroom, the Elvis framed photographs in her bedroom, the Elvis clock in her dining room (“That thing just shakes and shakes all day long – he just keeps on shaking!”) – not to mention the albums and movies and the scrapbooks full of bubblegum cards.
“When I retire I can live off this stuff,” she says, adding that her Elvis scarf and her Elvis charm bracelet are probably the most prized things in her collection. “I paid $1.59 for that scarf at Woolworth in 1956 – I know it’s worth more than that now!”
But, for Riser, the keepsakes aren’t the only thing that have increased in value over the years. Even the music itself seems more important these days – especially the gospel songs and the Christmas songs.
“They’re just wonderful,” she says. “They always mean a lot.”
No matter how many times she hears them.
This article originally appeared in the August/September 2009 issue of “The Portico,” the College of Charleston’s employee newsletter.