No one who met Elvis Presley in his earliest days could ever forget the way he stood out, even before fame touched his life. In Tupelo, he was just a small, shy boy with sandy hair and eyes that shifted between blue and green depending on the light. Neighbors would often say that Elvis seemed to carry an old soul inside him — gentle, polite, almost too soft for the rough edges of the world. When he walked down the dusty streets with Gladys holding his hand, people would pause without knowing why. There was already something luminous about him, something that made you look twice and wonder who the boy might one day become.
No one who met Elvis Presley in his earliest days could ever forget the way he stood out, even before fame touched his life. In Tupelo, he was just a…