4-19-1995.

Having lived in Oklahoma for 38 years I think I can safely say I'm "from" here.  I denied it for a long time, but now as I being the slow ascent towards 50 years old, I must accept what I cannot change and therefore, this is an Okie's tale.

Today is April 19th.  17 years ago todat at 5th street and Robinson in Oklahoma City..,about 110 mile from where I'm sitting there was amoment in time that lives in the same infamy as the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941,  President Kennedy's assasination in 1963, and other moments in history that while historic, we'd rather not have been part of.

I am referring to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

Every Okie has a story, and I am no exception.  It would be selfish of me to say that I had a direct connection to the events of 4-19-1995 but as a member of an agency that was part of the response to the explosion, the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office.  I can at least say I felt like I was part of it.  My rememberance of the day began about 45 minutes after the bomb went off, when I woke up to get ready to go downtown to have my picture made for an award I had recieved with the Sheriff's Office.

I went downstairs and absently turned on out TV set.  As my brain booted up, I remember hearing that a massive explosion had occured in Oklahoma City and they believed a gas main ruptured and blew out.  Waiting for my ride in town I remember the reporters changing that story from gas main failure to a bomb.  At about the same time, it was revealed that there was a day care center on the second floor, which made the heart sink. 

I sit here, 17 years later and I marvel at how far we've come.  Like I said in the opening, though I was born somewhere else, I grew up in Oklahoma and I am an Oklahoman.  I believe that as a matter of educational development, it should be a requirement of eveyr student in the state to travel to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and tour the grounds and museum.  I challenge whoever reads this blog to.  You will be changed by the experience.

You will become an Okie.  God bless the 168, we remember you today.