Forty years ago today I was a junior high school student enjoying the final weeks of the summer of ’77.  I was playing golf at the Lost Brook Golf Course in Norwood, Massachusetts with my brother, Chris, and our neighborhood friends, Ronny and Matt Adams. As we played, the skies started to grow dark and ominous, so we headed home.

Why do I remember August 16, 1977, so clearly? It’s because of what I saw when I arrived at home. My mother Marilyn was crying, not sobbing like a member of the family had died, but I knew something was wrong — and these tears weren’t over a broken vase. “Elvis died,” my mother blurted out. I remember watching coverage on the television news that night.

Now, my mother isn’t one of those Elvis faithful who wore a glittered sweatshirt with the Presley profile emblazoned across the chest. Hardly. She’s…