California Historic Route 66 Association

Keepsake vol Two

BUZZ BANKS

	In his yard near Green Tree Golf Course, Buzz Banks is chipping
balls for his black Lab, Casey to retrieve. Banks is 79, Casey a
strapping 11 months. "All my dogs' names have begun with a K'
sound", Banks says. "Casey, Queenie... It's a good sound for
calling. You can't be shouting, 'Melanie, oh Melanie!' while out
hunting."

A retired officer with the California Highway Patrol (he was
stationed in Victorville from l941 to 1969), he used to play
"real" golf. But he found it was taking too much time from his
other loves: hunting and exploring.

     "In fall 1991 I got an elk in Colorado. I took up exploring
because the Mojave Desert's at the center of three old trails:
the Santa Fe Trail and the Mormon Trail, both from Salt Lake City
and the old Government Road, which goes east to Flagstaff. Some
stretches have almost disappeared, but at Soda Lake it's easy to
see the Old Government Road."

     Whether chasing wagon ruts or entertaining visitors in his
Victorville living room, Banks is a one-man oral history of
California.

     "I was born in Los Angeles in 1913," he begins." We lived up
and down California: as far South as cattle ranch in Ramona, near
Mexico, and all the way to Hayfork in the extreme north of the
state. In Ramona we lived in an adobe house with walls three feet
thick. We had cows, pigs-paradise for a little boy.

     "My dad was brilliant, but his own worst enemy. He'd get a
job and almost immediately quit it. That's why we moved so much.
He got over extended and lost the ranch in Ramona."
     Banks earliest memory? "At age three I got on my three wheel
kiddie car and ran away from home. I went about three blocks,
before getting tired and going back home.

     "I remember when I was 4, that was 1917,I had mumps on one
side. My brother had it on both sides. We were at the San
Francisco Embarcadero, watching the troops board ship for Europe.

     "My favorite uncle was a photographer for Douglas Fairbanks
and May Pickford. During World War I, he took pictures of all the
big brass in Paris.

     "I paid attention to the war because I loved him. He came
back in one piece."

     Bank's grandfather Thorpe invented "the original road map,
the first honest-to-God, official highway map. He'd take all
kinds of photos and reprint them with the captions like 'When you
reach this barn, turn left.

     The map that looks a bit like an Automobile Club Triptik,
gives a wonderfully in-the-trenches vision of early 20th-century
motoring. For example, Map 22, the route from Ventura to Santa
Barbara, warns of "curves, heavy grades. Follow phone poles all
through the mountains."

     "But my grandfather didn't bother with the desert," Banks
admits.

     Appropriately for a CHP officer-to-be, many of Banks's
childhood memories star autos. For example: "As a kid in Big
Bear," he says, "I had a stripped-down Model T. We'd drive our
cars out on the frozen lake - do doughnuts and spin out. We had
much harder winters back then."

     Banks was married in 1935, "Evelyn and I have two children,"
says the proud father. "Janet and Randy both live in Chino,
within 1-1/2 miles of each other. We've always been a close
family."

     In 1941, Banks joined the CHP and came to Victorville. "That
was the year the speed limit changed from 45 to 55 ( I never did
cite someone for going 46). George Air Force Base (known then as
the Victorville Army Flying School) was just being surveyed. As
you topped the pass from down below, you couldn't see any lights
at all. All of Victorville was below the level of the fairgrounds
and rural electrification hadn't hit yet.

     "I was delighted. I loved the desert the openness and
freedom."

     According to Banks, who seems never to have minced a word in
his life, "Back then, Victorville was a cattle town, a mining
town, a real Western town. And many officers were winos. A sober
officer couldn't get a promotion. This one wino drove away from
the gas pump with the hose still in the car. He was promoted to
inspector.

     "Prohibition had made booze fashionable with people who
would never have had a drink otherwise. It was smart - alecky,
like graffiti. Big Bear and the Victor Valley were big centers
for stills.

     "Frank Day raised honeybees. He told me he sold his honey to
the boot-leggers. The feds had learned to check sugar sales
(sugar is used to make liquor), but they never thought to watch
honey.

     "In those days, you could fire in the air even in town.
Victorville was only two blocks wide - just shoot up and a little
to theside."-

     But violence itself is far from quaint. "When gunfire
starts." Banks says, you can't believe it's happening.  Butit
only lasts two seconds bang, bang, bang - then someone drops or
runs out of bullets and gives up.

     "It was attorneys who drove the cattlemen out of business. I
remember Bob Hitchcock, a cattleman in Holcomb Valley, saying 'My
grandfather ran off the Indians. Now it's my turn.' You see, all
these 1 -1/2 acre lots had begun to spring up. One of Bob's cows
would escape and wander into a kitchen garden. The homeowner
would close the gate, locking the cow in the garden, and sue
Bob."

     In the early '40s, just one CHP officer was responsible for
everything from Barstow to Needles and the state line. Banks's
territory extended from halfway to Barstow to this side of the
Pass, and from the L.A. County line to Lucerne Valley. "At first
we had only a motorcycle," Banks remembers. "The state didn't
believe we needed a car. Imagine being on a motorcycle and
chasing a car in this wind!"

     Another anecdote is reminiscent of Buster Keaton: In 1939,
anyone who needed the CHP in Barstow would call Cunningham's
Pharmacy, and George Cunningham would raise a flag outside his
store.

     Sooner or later, Walt Terry, the only officer in Barstow,
would toddle by on his cycle, see the flag and step inside to see
the report.

     "Walt Terry was a legend for his knowledge of the desert,"
Banks recalls.

     Another institution was Victoville's Deputy Sheriff Carl Mc
New, "last of the old time lawmen. He was here when there still
were Indians. He always had a toothpick in his mouth and always
carried three pistols. McNew was no good on targets, but he could
shoot a nail through the wall."

     According to Banks, a good CHP officer needs a sixth sense
as well as the ability to observe. "As you stand by the door
interrogating a driver, you can sense when the driver has stolen
the car. There's infinitesimal body language. It was easy to
catch even Greyhound bus drivers, and they pride themselves on
watching the rearview mirror.

     Crooks always fall for the good cop/bad cop routine. And all
crooks -even speeders- rationalize their crimes. Suppose you had
a crime yardstick that starts with shoplifting and goes up
through embezz1ement all the way to murder.  Any bad guy will
rationalize all crimes up to what he did, then criticize any
crime above that point."

     Banks mourns the stern old days of law enforcement. "In
those days we could shoot. If they put Wyatt Earp on duty today,
he'd be in jail by nightfall. You can't get away with his style
of doing things.

     "As a result of this Rodney King thing, half the L.A. police
force is worthless, riding it out 'til retirement. They pull back
and just do tailgate citations. I'm sorry for the other half:
They get no support.

     As for the Miranda decisions (which assures detainees the
right to remain silent), "it destroys an officer to have caught
someone in suspicious circumstances and not be able to question
them."

     Miranda came down June 13, 1966. Banks retired from the CHP
the last day of September 1969.

     Banks may have left the force, but his heart stills belongs
to the CHP and its history. A scrapbook holds precious photos,
including one of the old sheriff's office on Seventh Street in
Victorville, a block up from D Street.

     "And I wish they'd do something to preserve the old jail on
E Street," Banks says. "That's where we put all prisoners
overnight. Unless they were real bad; then we took them to San
Bernardino.

     "The prisoners were free to wander around - in winter, they
had to feed the fire. Generally all went well, but once a drunken
peg- leg guy took off his peg leg and was beating up the other
prisoners."

     For a man who went joy riding in a Model T, Banks is
unafraid of modern technology. "At 76," he says. "I bought a
computer, I want to write down some of my stories."
Please do, sir.

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