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I was raised in Oklahoma. I was actually born in Tulsa, but I grew up in a small town on the west side of Oklahoma called Elk City on a farm, where my dad grew up, actually.

When I was a little kid we moved to Tulsa, then to St. Louis and, by the time I was in kindergarten, we lived in Springfield, Missouri. There I basically grew up.

Tulsa was the kind of place where you could go to any door and borrow a cup of sugar. Everybody knew everybody. Truthfully, I don't even remember dealing with any racism in our town; we all got along.

I grew up on a farm in Lexington, Oklahoma, a rural community south of Norman. My family moved to Enid, Oklahoma, in 1962, when I was a junior in high school. This cast me into a totally different environment. Enid was a company town for Champlin Petroleum, and there was an oil boom going on.

I know a lot of people who say they want to leave Tulsa and go off to L.A. or New York City. But I can't wait to come back to Tulsa. It's a great place to be.

Growing up in Oklahoma the way I did, and being raised the way I was raised by my parents, gave me such a strong foundation to go out into the world and fly, so to speak, the way I was able to do.

I grew up in trailer houses in New Mexico, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

My mom grew up in Kansas, my dad in Indiana. They had boring childhoods.

I went to Norman High then I walked across the street after that and went to college. That's my home town, that's where I'm from. Physically I'm a Texan, but I'm an Oklahoman.

We all knew each other in the neighborhood. I loved living in El Paso. I had a wonderful childhood there.