Everybody has a few early memories that stick, even when the rest of childhood goes fuzzy. For Billy Smith, one of the very first involves a garbage can and his big cousin, Elvis Presley.
First, a little about Billy. He’s Elvis’s first cousin. His dad, Travis Smith, was the oldest brother of Elvis’s mother, Gladys. Billy’s mother was Lorraine, and he had a brother named Bobby.
Billy was eight years younger than Elvis. That’s a big gap when you’re kids. But it never seemed to matter to the two of them.
“And we were always close, even with the eight year age difference,” Billy said.
In January 2006, Billy sat down for a long interview with Piers Beagley of the Elvis Information Network. When he was asked about his earliest memory of Elvis, the first thing he thought of was music.
“I do remember him singing a lot for the family and different ones,” he said. “He always had a love for music even at very young age.”
That fits the Elvis we all came to know. But it was the next thing Billy remembered that makes people smile.
“Very early on I remember once when Elvis pulled me out of a garbage can! I fell in head first.”
So how does a little boy end up upside down in a garbage can? Billy explained that too.
“I was little, and I was trying to get some bananas out that the man from the fruit stand had thrown away.”
He was a little boy who spotted bananas in the trash and went in after them. Any parent knows how fast a curious little one can tip over the edge of something.
Luckily, help was walking by.
“Elvis saw me as he passed and pulled me out!”
That’s the whole story, and that’s why it’s lovely. Elvis spotted his little cousin in a jam and pulled him out, the way a good big cousin does.
Billy has shared memories of growing up with Elvis more than once. In this short clip from 2019, you can hear him look back on those years in his own words.
Billy Smith remembering growing up with Elvis
In another part of that 2006 interview, Billy talked about how Elvis treated him as a kid.
“He always looked after me, and I always wanted to be with him,” he said.
Plenty of little kids tag along after an older cousin. Not every older cousin lets them. From the way Billy tells it, Elvis was one of the good ones.
If you’d like to hear more from Billy, this older video from the early 1980s shows him and Jo Smith talking about Elvis.
Billy and Jo Smith talking about Elvis in the early 1980s
Billy said a lot of things about Elvis over the years. One answer from that 2006 interview sums up how he felt better than any other.
“Elvis was always my hero.”