Tim Banks Legacy
Chapter 1
I was born here in Daviess County, Owensboro, KY, in the 1950’s.
My daddy, Claude, and my mom, Dorris Harper, were both here when it was happening. My dad was in the military at the time. He was in the Marine Corps. I know he was a Corporal. I know that he went from being in the Marines to being in the Air Force and he did flight engineering on B52’s.
I don’t know a whole lot about my father other then I think he was a little bit wild when he was young. I think that’s what he did the military about. I think back in the day, before when you got into trouble, they just send you off to the military. I think he did some military time for maybe being a little crazy around here.
When I was born, he was stationed in Kansas, which I went and raced at the same Air Force base. In the last two years, I raced at the same place. I told somebody last year, I spent two years stationed at Topeka Kansas and they said, “Thank you for your service. “ I said, “No, I was two years old.” as I chuckled. But I spent last year there racing motorcycles and enjoyed every bit of it. Kinda reconnecting with were I was at. I went through the Air Force base and checked everything out.
When I was little, my dad worked at a tire re-manufacture place here in Owensboro. Then when I was about 5 he started working at Fields Packing Company and he worked there until the day he died.
My mom is still alive. But my mom was from Butler County, KY, and she was very very...I don’t want to say backwoods. She was very smart. She was a nurse. But they were back in the country in Butler county. BACK in the country.
She worked at General Electric, at the tube plant. Which I think about 5,000 women worked there. When I was born, I was in the GE factory with her, pregnant wise. Nineteen years later, I went back to the same manufacturing place and worked at GE for 29 years.
My Mom’s a college scholar. When General Electric got rid of the tube plant here in Owensboro, she went to school to be a nurse. So she became a nurse in the early 1970’s. She’s a nurse, a practitioner nurse. She delivered ALL my kids. Probably everybody in Daviess county I know, she was in ‘part’ of their birth. So, she’s got a little bit of a background also. She stayed a nurse until she retired about 10 years ago. She’s 85 right now.
My mom’s is eighth or ninth in the line of children. So, she had a sister that was old enough to be her mom.
So, my mom’s parents Eck and Macie Harper, had 29 grandchildren and I am the last one, so I didn’t get a whole lot of interaction with my grandparents on my mom’s side at all.
Eck was a farmer. He also did woodworking and had a little sawmill. You know, back in Butler County it’s basically survival of the fittest. They farmed, woodworked, fished, hunted. There wasn’t no basic job to do, so he did everything.
Macie’s maiden name was Kitchen and her mom was a Cherokee Indian that is buried at the Cherokee Village.
I don’t bring a lot of Cherokee in me. I don’t know for sure where my father’s background is about. I think it’s probably more overseas in England or someplace like that.
I know my grandfather on my dad’s side, Claude William Banks, was in WWII.
He had been in the Battle of the Bulge. He was in a unit that had a Indian Head on it and I do have some of the numbers for it. I don’t have them with me but, when he came back from the Battle of the Bulge, he was a mess and I think he drank himself to death. Because he was alive two days after I was born. So, when he came back from World WarII, my understanding was, he was a mess. I do know the unit he was in. He was a Sargent in his unit.
He is buried in Owensboro at the cemetery on 9th Street, which is probably the second or third oldest graveyard in Daviess county.
My Grandmother on my father’s side, pretty much raised me for awhile. When my parents were at work, she is the one that took me to school and took me to shows. When the movie Easy Rider came out and we were not quite teenagers yet, she took us to the movies, at Easy Rider. Didn’t say… no, you can’t. She said, “Lets go.” She was probably one of the few that, “What ever he wants to do, that’s good.”
I do have a sister, Terry and we don’t get along to much but…. that’s part of it. I just got the one sister and she’s a year younger then I am. She was born in Kansas.
We lived in the country about five miles outside of Owensboro, so we had the whole farm thing. It was a little two acre farm and I had a horse. My dad worked and my mom worked so I had a grandmother that stayed with us. I wasn’t on my own but I felt alone. So, I had a horse and messed around with the horse, played with dogs and stuff like that, but I never had a “mechanical” thing to keep me busy. You know, you can only do so much with a horse. You can’t really go anywhere with a horse. Their gonna tell you what’s going on. With a motorcycle, as soon as I sat on a motorcycle, it was like “click.” I felt at home on a motorcycle.
I have a high school education. I passed on a D- grade. Very very well mechanically, I’m all over it. Paper wise, I’m not about it. So, I think that when I was young, I was probably six or seven, probably six, I think I was just so introvert. I don’t want to say backwards, but I was so introvert and shy, that I did not understand the concept of getting along with everybody.
So, I think they put me on a mini-bike and said, “Here, go out and tear something up.” “Your not concentrating on anything else. Your school is terrible.”
So, from then on and I have physically been on a motorcycle from that day on.
Stopped at 12 minutes into the interview.
Chapter 2 will be published later.
Some names and dates were omitted, for security reasons.
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