GoElvis.com,

If the fans remember one thing about Vigil night on the 30th Anniversary of Elvis’ death, they’ll remember the heat. It was the kind of legendary heat we like to brag about in the South, but don’t ever want to be in. Plantation hot. Lemonade commercial hot.

We knew last Sunday it would be an oven, when the Weather Channel offered this sunny outlook for the week.

Apparently, even global warming is an Elvis fan, arriving along with 50,000 others to pay tribute to the King of Rock and Roll on the big night. How many big honkin’ Caddies did Elvis own or give away as birthday presents? Yes, global warming is a card carrying member of the Elvis Fan Club.

At one point in the evening I thought I might perish. It was 11 p.m. and I was standing absolutely still on the Graceland lawn, sweating so hard you couldn’t tell me from a sprinkler. I joked with Jack Soden of Elvis Presley Enterprises that we were just as wet as we were in 2002, the 25th Anniversary, when the proceedings got drenched by a thunderstorm.

The press room smelled like a locker room from all the sweaty reporters. When I opened one of the Peanut Butter and Banana Reece’s Cups being given away, I had to lick it out of the wrapper.

Another reporter and I discussed who might be the Vigil’s first victim of the heat — it had killed one person already that day. He’d spotted a guy in a black Elvis jumpsuit carting an oxygen tank. I had to see for myself.

Five minutes later, I located him, a nice fellow named Tom Vigil, from Denver. He was with his sister Lori Vigil and they’d planned this trip six months before. She made the suits herself, sewing on the beads and plastic gems while watching Elvis films.

The pair turned out to be a great interview and their story is in the paper today.

A secret to getting mentioned in the news, or your picture on a blog or to be videotaped for national broadcast is to make a spectacle of yourself. That makes it easier for us to find you. It was during my annual hunt for the craziest Elvis fans that I stumbled upon Roy Smalley from Tuscaloosa, Ala.

He’s been coming to the Vigil for 20 years, but for the last six he’s been serving with the Shelby County Rescue Squad, making sure people are relatively protected at the Vigil. Can you imagine being an Elvis fan, passing out from the heat and then waking up in a blur to see Elvis standing over you? If the heat didn’t kill you, that just might. Roy thought it was pretty funny himself.

As the evening progressed, Elvis Presley Boulevard was closed off and the street filled with people setting up their personal tributes. This one using hundreds of votive candles to spell out Elvis Presley’s signature was particularly cool, but very high maintenence.

Soon I found Peter Fischer, 29, in a lawn chair with some friends. They’d brought a cooler full of well-camoflaged beer, and a shrine to the King — mostly for the kitsch factor.

Next year, this is exactly how I’m going to do it: Hang out, people watch, listen to some music, and bask in the eternal craze that is Elvis Presley.