I was eleven years old when Donald Eugene Chambers founded the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in San Leon, Texas. The year was 1966. Chambers, who was born in Houston, Texas, in 1930, was hooked on the motorcycle way of life from an early age. Although he didn’t race motorcycles, he was an avid fan of two-wheeled competition and belonged to an American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) affiliated motorcycle club called the Eagles.

The club’s members religiously hit the road to attend and support AMA races in southeastern Texas. Eventually Chambers migrated from the Eagles to another motorcycle club called the Reapers, which, as their name suggests, was an outlaw club. In the Reapers, he attained the position of national secretary which provided him with a solid grounding in the dynamics of how to successfully run a motorcycle club. It was only a matter of time before Chambers, who liked to do things his own way, got an itch to found his own club – a club he would call the Bandidos.

The founder of the Bandidos has often been characterized by journalists and authors alike as a disillusioned Vietnam War, Marine Corps veteran who became a biker – like so many other vets – because he had an axe to grind with American society, a society that denigrated survivors of that terrible war as losers and baby killers; that spat upon them in airports; and that in many cases denied them employment. The truth, however, is in direct opposition to the myth: Don Chambers, although at one time a member of the Marine Corps, was anything but a disillusioned Vietnam vet. The closest he got to Vietnam was the evening news. Whether he was disillusioned or not is a moot point: it sounds good in print and jells with the cliché portrayals of bikers. In society’s collective consciousness, anybody who starts or joins an outlaw motorcycle club must be disillusioned, disturbed, antisocial, or rebelling against something – perhaps all of the above.

No doubt Bandido Don was disillusioned with American society of the 1960s as were millions of hippies, college students, and assorted left-wingers during that turbulent decade. Another misconception, which has been disseminated by many journalists, is that Chambers chose the red and gold colors of the Marines for the Bandidos’ patch in tribute to the Corps. Actually, the original patch colors he chose were red and yellow, inspired by the coral snake and a southern expression “red and yellow, kill a fellow”. Red and gold wasn’t adopted until a number of years after the Bandidos were founded. And contrary to popular belief, Chambers did not base the central image of his club’s patch on the cartoon character in the Frito Lay Bandito TV commercial. Although it makes for an interesting story it lacks total credence, as the commercial didn’t even start airing until 1967, and only during children’s programming.

Another myth surrounding the founding of the Bandidos is that it was Chambers’ intention to create an intimidating gang that would control the Texas drug trade. When the Bandidos Motorcycle Club first came into being Chambers was a gainfully employed longshoreman on the docks of Galveston, not some kind of kingpin drug dealer as has been suggested. While it can’t be denied that Bandido Don became involved with drugs – it is a matter of record that he was mixed up in a drugs-related double homicide for which he served time in prison – like the dozens of other outlaw motorcycle clubs established in the late fifties and early sixties riding Harley Davidsons, drinking, partying, and rabblerousing were the Bandidos’ mandate.

The slogan Chambers adopted for the club –we are the people our parents warned us about – is the key to the mindset he harbored: fuck the world! We’re not toeing the line; we’re not the conditioned little puppets churned out by the system to serve society and the ruling elite who push the buttons; we do things our own way! As an outlaw biker Chambers’ philosophy and feelings towards mainstream society was well defined:“One percenters are the one percent of us who have given up on society and the politician’s one-way law. We’re saying we don’t want to be like you. So stay out of our face. It’s one for all and all for one. If you don’t think this way then walk away, because you are a citizen and don’t belong with us.”

Exactly what inspired Chambers to call his club the Bandidos, and where exactly the “Fat Mexican” patch idea come from, is much less sensational than the myth. People who were c