The Elvis Shrine
My name is Mike Jones. But everybody calls me Spike. It's a nickname I got in high school. I attended high school at Holmes and I was in the band and somehow I think it just came from a faux Pa. Someone accidentally said Spike instead of Mike. And of course, during the police academy those guys are kind of relentless so they just thrive of it. So the nickname stuck.
I'm a police officer for the City of Covington. I've lived here all my life. I was born here in '65. My parents had moved here from Knox County, Kentucky, the Barbersville area. I believe they moved up here around '58 r '59. And I was born here.
I'm occasionally asked what my dad did for a living and I respond what didn't he do? He was a paper boy there for a short period of time. He worked in the mines. I think off and on while his father was down with a broken back. He worked for Knox Motors. He was a mechanic. He quit Knox Motors and went up to Norwood to the Fisher Body plant.
When I was young, we would go back home just about every weekend. We'd pile up in the car and head south. Before the interstate it was a long drive. Down 25 South. After the interstate, it took about three and a half hours. You know, being raised, I thought everybody did that when I was little. I thought well, everybody goes out of town on the weekend. Nobody is at home on the weekend. Unless they're bored of something. I just thought everybody did that. And I loved it down here. I loved the country down there when I was a kid. And I liked to get down there when I was older and my parents would let me roam around. me and my cousins would go up in the woods and just pilfer around and build tree houses and tents and forts, which is something that I can do. In the city there was just no place to do that. So I really loved it down there. I loved being outdoors. I still do. I go backpacking now for that reason. I think that's what got me that was a good place around here to do that. I really loved going down there. But as you get older things change and we didn't go back a often.
I joined the police force in 1988. I serve as a 'Community Cops' officer for the west side of Covington. I 'm assigned to this area specifically as, not as much as a community relations officer, but as a community officer. I'm here to try and break down some the barricades hat have existed for so long in urban low enforcement between the police and the community. And those barriers might be stereotypes and misconceptions. Our part as police officers as well as on the community's part dealing with this. So I'm here and try to knock down some of those walls and show the people, well, we're individuals too. We're people too. Just as you're individuals too. Basically, just talk to people and see what's going on.
There are a lot of Appalachian people in this area. And for many of them, they don't trust the police. See, most of the time you just don't call the police. You handle it yourself. I believe that comes from years and years of not having law enforcement actively involved in the community or visible in the community in Southeastern Kentucky. And learning to deal with your own problems and handling your own problems. Well when these families move to an urban environment they may be involved in an argument with their neighbor next door and then someone from across the street calls and says. "I think there's a problem over there." And then we show up to try and mediate the problem. But sometimes it's putting people at ease. Sometimes it's letting somebody know, I've done this before, let them know where my family's from.
I know specifically there was a domestic on the 600 block of Garrard Street, in an apartment building. Sort of run down building and a lady was sitting there, and older lady, smoking. And her daughter and her son in law were going at it arguing. And she said, "Well I ought to move back to Manchester." And I said,"I thought that about a dozen times." Manchester is an awful nice place. where you from down there. Perry county…was it Clay County?" so we wound up the three of us talking about clay county and the basketball down there. Whatever basketball team the high school had. People had of went like there is the problem. The fire wasn't there anymore because people were a little bit more relaxed talking to me about a share experience. It helped us…it really did. Not having been able to do that or relate specific things to Manchester. I think it would have kept boiling and boiling and probably somebody would have went to jail. That's the last resort. I don't think any police officer that I know in this city specifically go out on a day to day basis to see how many people they can lock up. It just winds up that way sometimes.
You know something? - - there are a lot of Elvis shrines in the city of Covington. And I don't know if that a phenomenon throughout the state or the southern states of America. But there are many households with Elvis shrines in it that you can trace directly to some Appalachian roots. We noticed this; a partner of mine and I noticed this sometime ago. This phenomenon; whenever we would wind up at a house with a Elvis shrine the people would generally be speaking with a dialect of southeastern Kentucky or Tennessee, at one place or another in the house there would be photograph of Elvis or a picture of Elvis or the obligatory velvet Elvis or the collection of Elvis video tapes. We got a lot of fun Elvis stories and every one of them has been from Appalachian Households.
For example, we went on a domestic call in a place called Cambridge Square. It's a Section 8 government subsidized housing in the southern end of the city of Latonia. A lady and her 18 year old son, they were having an argument and the next door neighbor called in the complaint on them. We showed up and the 18 year old son had already gone when we got there. And the lady was there and we walked in. And I said, "Ma'am, what's going on?" She said it's my son and he's torn up all my good stuff" and I got the dialect right there. "He tore up everything. He's tore the whole house up. It's a mess." I said, "OK so what has he done so far." I stepped in the door and looked around and I noticed the first strange thing was one of those hook latch rug kits, an Elvis rug. I thought well that's nice. So I looked around and there was the velvet Elvis over the couch. And I thought we're getting a little overkill here. There was an Elvis lamp. You've seen these busts of Elvis it's got a lamp. If you get the right lampshade he looks like a shrine. Or if you take the lampshade off it looks like Elvis has got an idea, you know what I'm talking about! So, she's got the Elvis lamp sitting, a deck of Elvis playing cards. I'm really looking for it now because there is Elvis stuff everywhere. I gotta find every little detail.
Of course, I'm talking to this lady. My partner is standing behind her and making eye contact with me and I can't look him in the eye or I'm gonna laugh. And he starts going (talking like Elvis) She hasn't heard him speak yet. She's just gonna think this is his voice. This is gonna be bad. "Well, then what happened?" (sounding like Elvis.) So this goes on and she goes, "well, then he cut the top off my car." So I said, "This is about enough." I see his feet move out like this and I'm trying not to make eye contact with him. I see him start gesturing with his hands like so doing the "old hang loose Elvis stand" from the old days in Vegas, you know. And he's going, (like Elvis) "Well, then what happened, m'am? Uh, huh, uh, huh." So I am about to die. I go out on the deck and I look at her car and say it looks ok. The car looks fine and I said, "Well, go out and we will try and find this rascal and bring him back if you want to press charges." Well, as I turned and looked at my partner he's got the collar flipped up on his uniform shirt and he's standing talking to this lady and I mean he's got it flipped all the way up like this, talking to this lady. And I said, "Well, we'll get right on it." I run out and I'm trying to hold it in. He's at the doorway he drops his pen in front of the doorway purposely. And she goes, "Well, I don't know how to thank you. I don't know that to say." And he goes, "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!" (like Elvis.) He bends down and picks his pen up and puts it in his pocket and she never picked up on it. And she called in and she called in and she said those boys are so nice you sent out. And I thought man…that kept us from getting suspended over that one, you know. We got a few Elvis stories. At one point we actually took a map of the city and we marked it with those little stick pins. We were tracking Elvis shrines in the city to see how many we had and where they were located. Mike: I've got Elvis all over my house now. So, I'm on the map myself I guess. END
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