Age and Location

[Mississippi Blues]

I'm 19, born & raised in OKC. Currently living in Atlanta for college, but will most likely move back to OKC once I'm done with what I need here in Atlanta (I've also considered moving to Munich, Germany, but that's just if everything aligns ideally).

[elitespy]

25 years old. Born in Birkenfeld Germany and lived there for 5 years, Moved to Ft. Irwin, California for another 4 years, Then back to Germany (Weisbaden this time) for 3 years from there moved to Ft. Hood, Texas where my dad retired and stayed in Killeen where I spent the most time in one place (10 Years). After high school moved up here to go to college met my wife who lived in Yukon and now I am a permanent resident of OKC.

[Mississippi Blues]

^^two Germans posting at the same time. Haha. I wasn't born in Germany, but my family is German & spends some time in Germany & my uncle is fluent in German while the rest of my family knows enough to get by but is also learning to speak fluently.

[NWOKCGuy]

32 - OKC - Moved here with work in 2005 from Austin.

[pw405]

28, lived in okc until 19, moved to norman for school, still live in Norman but work in OKC for past 5 years.

[RadicalModerate]

Come on Rad....you can do it. Let us know you're the record oldest hack on the net, lol.

Moved here in 1973 at the tender age of 21. Jones . . . Crutcho . . . Nicoma Park . . . Midwest City . . . Jones . . . Oklahoma City . . . The Village.

To spare you the math, I'm 61.

Sometimes I feel--at least mentally--like I'm about 25. Or at least what I imagine I recall it was like to be 25. But I'm old. I forget. =)

[bradh]

32. Born and raised in Alaska. Lived in Oklahoma, Seattle, Vancouver BC, and Iraq.

I think maybe this was posted elsewhere, but where in Alaska?

[OKCisOK4me]

Moved here in 1973 at the tender age of 21. Jones . . . Crutcho . . . Nicoma Park . . . Midwest City . . . Jones . . . Oklahoma City . . . The Village.

To spare you the math, I'm 61.

Sometimes I feel--at least mentally--like I'm about 25. Or at least what I imagine I recall it was like to be 25. But I'm old. I forget. =)

My sister was born in 73. She's 40 so thanks but I'm a Grandmaster at addition ;-)

[warreng88]

34, born and raised Okie. Son of a preacher man (cue the music) I have lived in Goodwell, Hugo, Tulsa, Tahlequah and Broken Arrow. Graduated from Broken Arrow HS, went to OCU for college and have lived in OKC for the last 15 years.

[OKCDrummer77]

36, family moved to Tulsa when I was 4 and Enid when I was 5. I moved to OKC at 18 for college, and I have lived here ever since.

[dmoor82]

31, born in OKC and lived most of my life in the metro. I have also lived in TX, CA, AZ and MA for short durations, I currently reside in MWC.

[CaptDave]

48 - born at Ft Leavenworth, KS; 10 schools in 12 years before graduating high school; also lived in NC, SC, TN, KY, VA, NY, FL, AL, MO, WI, Japan, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan; spent time in several other places for shorter periods; ended up in OKC in 2002 and after a few deployments decided to stay after retiring because of the dramatic changes in the city and so kids could finish high school where they started.

[Achilleslastand]

40-something and lived in the metro as well as Edmond and Yukon for basically all my life besides a stint in the USMC which mostly consisted of duty at several points in southern California.

[Jim Kyle]

Come on Rad....you can do it. Let us know you're the record oldest hack on the net, lol.

Not likely; I'll be 83 next March (but going on 35 mentally). Born in Stillwater, family travelled through Arkansas and Louisiana before moving to Elk City where I started school in 1936. Spent most of WW2 in Southern California but came back to OK in 1946. Graduated from OU in 1952. Spent 13 months in Korea during the big shoot there. Moved to the L.A. area in 1959 to get into the electronics industry as a tech writer, came back to OKC in 1962 and have been here ever since.

[bchris02]

Not likely; I'll be 83 next March (but going on 35 mentally). Born in Stillwater, family travelled through Arkansas and Louisiana before moving to Elk City where I started school in 1936. Spent most of WW2 in Southern California but came back to OK in 1946. Graduated from OU in 1952. Spent 13 months in Korea during the big shoot there. Moved to the L.A. area in 1959 to get into the electronics industry as a tech writer, came back to OKC in 1962 and have been here ever since.

If you lived in Elk City in 1936 you probably had first hand experience with the dust bowl. You mention being in California during WWII, was it the depression/dust bowl that lead you out there? As somebody who actually experienced most of the 20th century, would you consider life better today or back during the postwar era?

[G.Walker]

32, born and raised in Utah, moved to McAlester, Ok when I was 13, went to college at OU, now living in Moore.

[Pete]

I'm 53 (!) and was born in Milwaukee but my family moved to OKC when I was only 3. I stayed until the economic collapse of the late 80's, and at age 29 headed west to Southern California for graduate school and have been here ever since.


For those that don't know, I started on this site as a humble poster trying to keep tabs on my beloved hometown, then bought it (for WAY too much!) in order to keep it going. I'm proud to say that we've grown by leaps and bounds since then and my #1 goal has always been to provide an asset to the community.

We've got some great things planned for the very near future as well.


And I always like to say, no matter where I live, Oklahoma City will always be my home.

[hoya]

Crap, at 35 I'm older than most of the people here. Fortunately I'm a lot less mature.

[windowphobe]

The big six-oh, two-thirds of which were spent right here in the 405 (in all four quadrants over the years).

[Jim Kyle]

If you lived in Elk City in 1936 you probably had first hand experience with the dust bowl. You mention being in California during WWII, was it the depression/dust bowl that lead you out there? As somebody who actually experienced most of the 20th century, would you consider life better today or back during the postwar era?

I do remember at least one dust storm, but remember that was when I started first grade. My earliest clear memory of those days is of hearing the break-in on WKY about Will Rogers and Wiley Post being killed in that Alaska plane crash, which was 1935. The worst dust storms I ever experienced, though, were both in Southern California -- one in 1943 and the other in 1961.

I did have lots of theoretical knowledge about the Dust Bowl, though. My father was in civil service, with the Shelterbelt program of the Forest Service from 1935 through 1940; its purpose was to combat the dust storms by planting trees as windbreaks. He was in charge of the Elk City district; we did spend a couple of years in OKC around 1939-40 but always considered Elk City to be home. That project shut down in late 40 or early 41, and he left civil service and took advantage of his lifetime teaching certificate (which he had never before used) to become the Vocational Agriculture teacher down at Dibble beginning in September of 1942. A couple of months later his old boss from Shelterbelt days asked him to come back to the Forest Service and manage a 1040-acre plantation to grow sagebrush for its natural rubber content, part of the Emergency Rubber Project that ran from 1942-46. The Dibble school board released him from his contract and we settled down in the middle of the plantation, between Beaumont and Banning in Riverside County. When the war ended, he transferred into the Veterans Administration and we came back to OKC.

As for whether things are better today, as compared to the immediate post-WW2 era, I'd have to say it's a mixed bag. Downtown OKC was far nicer then. The urban renewal debacle had not yet destroyed downtown, nor had the rush to the suburbs that prompted same yet begun. The trolley cars still ran, for a couple of years. Retail hadn't even begun to go as far out as Midtown, although Kerr's and Street's did expand up there before very long. As a teenager I felt absolutely no fear at going downtown by myself, or walking home from school (from NW 18 and Ellison to NW 20 and May). However when we first returned to OKC, we had to live for three months in a two-room "efficiency apartment" which was a converted single-car garage, at 313 NW 13. That definitely was no fun.

My classmates in the last few years of the 40s were all fully literate, and were able to make change without the help of a calculator, unlike many of today's high school graduates. So a lot of things were better then than they are now.

However it wasn't all a bed of roses. We didn't have computers, or even television until WKY finally came on the air from its makeshift studio in the Municipal Auditorium. TV networks were in their infancy, and shows broadcast on either coast didn't get here until a week later, being sent on 16-mm movie film. Since the state was still legally bone dry, much of the law enforcement structure was more than a trifle corrupted by influence of bootleggers; I had no trouble at all buying anything I wanted at the tender age of 19.

Medical science today is infinitely better than it was then; for more than a decade I've been living with a diagnosis that would have been almost immediately fatal before heart transplants became available, and would have required a transplant for a couple of decades after that. An implanted pacemaker and skilful medication have kept me around, with the heart failure apparently in full remission, though. The cost of such care may be unreasonably high, but I'm quite thankful that it exists.

So as I said, it's a mixed bag. The only two things of which I'm certain about this subject is that life has changed dramatically in the past 60 years, and that it will continue to do so during the next 60, with some things improving and others getting worse...

[rjstone208]

Born in South Dakota but moved to OKC when I was five. Mom's from here. Spent 20 yrs in Army including 2 yrs at Ft. Sill and tours in Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Korea and stateside in D.C., GA, AL, MO and HI with TDY's to almost every state and came home immediately upon retirement. In Hawaii at the time and couldn't wait to get away from that place. Vacation okay but sucks to live there. I'm 67 and counting. I kept my OKC resident status the whole 20 yrs but now live in Norman. My kids were Army brats but both moved back home to OKC when they grew up and out. Despite being world travelers both say they never considered living anywhere else.

[stick47]

Born in Stillwater in 1947. A few years in Wichita as a kid and back to OK since then. Wouldn't live anywhere else.

[BrettM2]

29, Lived in Oklahoma from 1992-2013 (Altus, Midwest City, OKC, Stillwater, and Edmond). I miss OKC but I doubt my current career track will let me return (possibly for a few years at the end of the decade, but not likely). I'll be keeping up here as long as Pete keeps the website going.

[BG918]

28 - Born and raised in the Dallas area, grade school in Tulsa, moved to Norman to go to OU then stayed after graduation working in OKC. In the past 4 years I have been away from Norman working on projects in Tulsa and Denver but still own property there and return often.

[ljbab728]

66 and born in Norman. I've been in the OKC area all of my life.