After graduation several of us gathered at the Scott Place down at Doublehorn. Winfield Scott had been out of high school for a year and was home after finishing his first year at LSU. His folks were away, so it was an ideal place for a party.

Knowing I had stuff to do the next day I had the presence of mind to leave the party before daylight and head to Smithwick. I was scheduled to go to San Antonio and pick up a load.

I was over on the Eastside of San Antonio by mid morning sitting at a huge warehouse. Driving there had been the easy part. I backed up to a dock and was shown a huge stack of wooden pallets. Those pallets needed to be stacked neatly, making sure I didn’t stack them higher than 8′ tall. No one was there to help me so if I was ever going to load them I’d need to get busy. The fellow we were hauling them for had recently showed up in Marble Falls to set up wooden pallet refurbishing business. So it was important for me to do a good job and haul as many as possible.

By late afternoon the trailer was loaded and I was ready to pull out. Cecil Lewis had sent me there that day with a few chains and boomers, that would normally be required for hauling a machine or two. They were not adequate for lashing down a 40′ long deck full of wooden pallets. However he had left a bunch of rope in the cab of the truck for me to use for that purpose. I suppose he figured I would become resourceful.

I did the best I could to secure the load, but I’ll admit I was so tired by that point that all I wanted to do was hit the road back to Marble Falls. I eased out of the parking lot of that warehouse and continued across the overpass so I could turn left on the frontage road to hit I-10.

As I made that 90 degree turn I heard a commotion. Looking back in my right side mirror, I could see that several stacks of pallets were strewn across the intersection. My heart sank. I got out and went back to see what could be done to escape the situation.

At that moment a car load of young, most intoxicated Mexican boys rolled up. About 8 of them jumped out and started throwing pallets every which way. In a few minutes time, we had them loaded and it appeared they had better lashing skills than I did, because the load really looked fit to make the trip back home.

As quick as those guys had appeared, they vanished into the night just as suddenly. I was wanting to offer then whatever money I had but it wasn’t to be. I pulled out unto I-10 so I could go up and find my way back to Marble Falls.

Within a mile or so that Ol Six Cylinder Chevrolet was making a hellish racket. It gave up and died right there. I was able to get to the center median of the highway. I walked to find a telephone so I could call Cec to tell him what had happened. I went back to wait at the truck. I was able to catch a welcome few hours of sleep before Cec rolled up with another truck in which to get the broken one. We separated the truck from the trailer, leaving all the pallets there.

We came home and Cecil turned around and went back to get the trailer load of pallets. I think he understood how tired I was, because I don’t think he ever thought about sending me back to San Antonio to get the pallets. He was reasonable like that.