Yes, I was born in Oklahoma, a fact I’m proud of. When people find out, it’s usually a surprise because it seems like everyone else was born in Alabama, where we live and where I’ve really always lived. I do remember in school growing up teachers would ask if everyone was born in Alabama, and again everyone was always surprised I was not. The same thing happened when we told everyone we were going to Oklahoma for vacation in 2026. The question was always why. Even when we told people in Oklahoma we were there on vacation they would ask why. The why is another part of my return.
It starts with my mom and dad, of course. We know from stories that Mom and Dad went on a blind first date. The rest is history. Without getting into timelines, Dad ended up being stationed in Oklahoma due to his service in the Air Force. Clinton Sherman Air Force Base was in Burns Flat Oklahoma. Mom and Dad lived in Dill City Ok which is about 10 miles from the Air Force base. Growing up, we would look at pictures and old home movies of Mom and Dad’s time there. During Mom and Dad’s time there, Mom was pregnant with me, and that’s how I ended up being born in OK at Clinton Sherman Air Force base hospital. We think we all moved back to Alabama when i was around 1 year old. We had heard stories of Mom being miserable there just being me and her, while Dad was at work, and all of our other family being back home in Bama.
Flash forward to being an adult. Over the years I’ve always thought about going to visit OK. We just never took it seriously. It took Julie and I being empty nesters, and finally starting to travel more that we seriously considered it. We’ve been to Arizona and Vermont now, and were discussing our next vacation. We were discussing going to Orlando to Disney and to Oklahoma and decided it was time for 2026. We as usual spent a ton of time researching because we didn’t know anything about the state! We decided to spend a few days in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Pawhuska. More importantly, we decided to visit Burns Flat and Dill City where I was born and where Mom and Dad had lived.
We had to research Clinton Sherman AFB and Burns Flat and Dill City. We found the the AFB had closed not many years after i was born. It’s now a space port due to the landing strip being so long. We also found on Google that a water tower is still standing that was in some of Mom and Dad’s old pictures! Thankfully we had some of Dad’s Air Force paperwork so we were able to determine the road that Mom and Dad lived on in Dill City. With those findings, we were able to visit one day on our trip.
This trip meant alot to me. We were able to drive on the roads in OK that Mom and Dad drove on. I now see why Mom was sad, it feels so far away from home out there in the middle of nowhere. We were able to see where Dad was stationed, and where the hospital was generally located, as we don’t know what building it was or if it’s still even standing. And we were able to drive around the neighborhood and on the road that Mom and Dad (and me!) lived for a time. We had no real way of finding their exact house since we didn’t have an actual address, but from pictures we saw a few we thought could be it! It took me over 50 years but I’m thrilled we were finally about to visit Oklahoma and the parts of it that were personal to me. We do wish we went have went sooner, and maybe even had been able to take Mom and Dad.
Who knows if we’ll ever go back, but a long time goal and dream of mine was filled on this trip, and I’ll alwasys be thankful we were able to go.
Until next time, Oklahoma.
