[Granville-Hough] 10 Feb 2010 - Adventures with Billy Bob Smith

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:49:48 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Adventures with Billy Bob Smith - 10 Feb 2010

    Last week I carefully composed stories of my adventures with a 
carefree and forgetful classmate named William Robert "Billy Bob" Smith, 
Jr.  Then I struck the wrong computer key and lost it all.  Billy Bob's 
father was an El Paso Congressman who died of heart attack in El Paso, 
leaving Billy Bob with a widowed young mother.  Billy Bob invited me to 
help him drive his new car to Camp Stoneman, where we were to get the 
first available ship to the Far East.  The first night we went to Hoover 
Dam, where soldiers could spend the night in private homes. there being 
no motels.  The next night we were in Death Valley.  The third night we 
spent with Basque sheepherders in Lee Vining.  About all I remember of 
the Basques were that they drank a lot of very red wine, and the name on 
their trucks and trailors were LAM-EAT.
    The next morning, the Basques were all gone, moving their sheep to 
the high country for summer grazing.  Billy Bob studied the map and 
found a road through the mountains which would pass through Yosemite 
Valley, which he wanted to see.  It was early June, so off we set, 
enjoying the first Sierra vistas we had ever seen.  The  road was 
cleared, but we did notice there no vehicle tracks.  We thought there 
had been overnight snow which covered any tracks which had been made.  
We finally came to a closed gate with barricades.  Billy Bob said, "Oh, 
we'll just drive around that gate and go on."  We moved around the gate 
and promptly got stuck in the deep snow.   We struggled about an hour, 
with me pushing and shoving with all my strength.   The altitude was 
about 10,000 feet, so it was very fatiguing work  About that time we 
began to consider how we would spend the night in the cold, and along 
came a California Highway Patrol.  They had seen the fresh vehicle 
tracks and wondered who and why anyone would be on that road plainly 
marked, "Closed for the Winter."  Of course, we were from El Paso, 
already in summer uniform, and had paid no attention to any such signs 
along the way.
They got us back on the road, turned us around, and gave us a severe 
chastizing about not paying attention to the signs.  We also learned 
that the road we were trying to follow had several downed trees which 
would have blocked us even if we got around the locked gate.  The 
Highway Patrol pointed out another pass through the mountains which was 
open and we took it and saw all the high Sierra snowfields we needed to 
see.
    This story should probably be included among my nine lives.  It was 
close enough.  Grandpa.