Jim Banks: “it is the honor of my life to be here representing Indiana in the U.S. Senate. I want to start out thanking Hoosiers for…”

“it is the honor of my life to be here representing Indiana in the U.S. Senate. I want to start out thanking Hoosiers for sending me here to serve them, my State, and my country. It is an incredible honor. It is humbling and thrilling, truly, speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate for the very first time. You know, I grew up in a trailer park in Columbia City, IN, a small town of less than 10,000 people. I still live there today with my wife Amanda and our three young daughters, and, really, it is the best hometown in America. But when I was a kid, we lived on the very south end of town, on a dead-end street with about a dozen trailers. I often drive by that boyhood home, and I point it out to my daughters, and I say: That is where I came from. Unfortunately for them, it is on the way to school. So they hear me say that a lot, and they get annoyed every time I say it. But I have a lot of great memories growing up in that trailer park. I remember my dad teaching me how to ride a bicycle in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. I remember his cream-colored Ford Bronco. The top would come off. He would wax it on the street and drive it around town. He was so proud of it. I remember the bunkbed at the front of the trailer that I shared with my brother Chad. I remember the swing set in the side yard. I remember deer hunting season. My dad would bring the buck home that he was proud of. We would can the meat, and we would live off it for the winter.…”