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Well, friends, I have to apologize that I haven't been here in a while, and I have let things get backed up that we need to talk about. We haven't had time to talk over the Holidays, and I need to rectify that tonight with a short, or long, little entry that comes from my heart to your ears (well eyes, but who's going to be that

We all know that Christmas happened last month, and being that I am half neurotic and half pessimistic, you know that it wasn't that much fun. We had the usual get togethers here and there. We always start Christmas Eve out at my aunt's house. We wont call her name, because I can't say Louise on the Internet. We pretty much do the same thing there over and over, year after year. It's the same menu... they never spice it up. I keep voting for hot wings or pizza but it never happens. I mean, I know they're family and I love them, but would it hurt them to tap a Christmas keg?

We also always sing the "12 Days of Christmas" song. Fortunately, last year we got reprieve since my dad had passed away a few months before. I got the out (they thought it would make us grieve harder) and we took it to skip the song. My uncle really enjoys it, but the rest of us use it as a point to laugh and make fun of each other. It's one of those traditions you will remember through the years, mainly because you're glad it's gone. After that we do the old gift switch-a-roo and then go home. If you're lucky, you can get out without the ever traditional round of photos... but that usually doesn't happen. This year, and partly to be mean, I carried my big camera with the huge flash and blinded everyone.

Christmas morning we went to Evelyn's family to watch our nieces open what Santa brought. The big guy must have spent half the night there unloading, 'cause there was a pletheter of presents skirting the living room. I believe it took them hours to get through it all, and we had enough scrap paper to fill the bed of the truck. No kidding. I won't say much about them (let her bragg on her own family) but they do make mine look more and more normal.

People keep asking me (and Evelyn) when we are going to have kids. I told someone over Christmas that I didn't know as I had never even seen her naked. She believed me. We've been married for over two years now, and I have to say that some of my fondest memories of my wife thus far involve her being naked, but that's not the point. And I'm sure the person still believes what I told her. I really get frustrated with people asking when we're going to have kids, because I know we will have them, when we're ready and when God is ready for us to have them. Not before. I'm still too big of a kid myself, and still need a little bit of freedom. We're not getting fixed, nixing kids all together or putting the subject off. We're just doing it in our time frame. And for all of the people that think we need one, should have one now, and don't understand why we aren't just pining away at our barren hearts, get a life and butt out.

Finally for tonight, because most people have already stopped reading because they've been insulted, I want to talk about organized religion. I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I went to one until about 2 years ago and I frankly got tired of a lot of the games and gimmicks they have going on. I know there are a lot of very good, very Christian SB people, but that's the problem. Most of them only believe half of the Bible. They believe Jesus died for our sins, but think He made non-alcholoic wine. They believe David was a man after God's heart, but don't like to admit he danced. They believe Jesus was great but forget He spent most of his timer ministering to the undesirable crowd.

Think about this if you will. If Jesus were here today, in South Carolina, where would he be at? Most Christians want to think he would be on the front row of their church, or bathed and pristine with blonde hair and blue eyes. They don't want to admit their Jesus was a poor Son of a carpenter, who wore workmans clothes, was not the cleanest person in the world, and beared more resemblance to what we would inacurately call a terrorist than the Fabio verion they have in their mind. Would we stop Jesus in an airport security line because of his dark olive skin, dark hair and eyes, and the clothing he would have on? Yeah, we're that stupid. But here's why. We were all taught some things from birth, that are wrong. Be believe that God spoke in the language of Old England, with thou's and thee's and He didn't. As a matter of a fact, some are so hung up on it, they pray with thou's and thee's. Here's a bulletin, if you don't talk to your mama like that, don't pester God with all that. He can hear you just like you are, and he doesn't like it when you try to put on.

Jesus would be over at Platinum Plus, over off Green Avenue, down by the railroad tracks, at the Downtown Mission, in a bar, walking the streets. He would be with the people that so many think they are too good to be around. How blind they are. We judge by what someone looks like, what they have and what they do. God tells us to love the sinner but not to love their sin. Why don't we listen to that and do it? How many Christians would faint when they saw Jesus over at Platinum? 95% of them I bet.

I think we should quit focusing so much on our denomination and focus more on being a Christian. It's a sad world for the church when people who are out of church see more in line with the true essensces of the Bible than faithful servants. The problem is they have too much self pride and glory in the service and have forgotten the most important part of what Jesus taught us... humility.

Next time you're talking to one of those Holy rollin', do goodin' people, remember what ole Strick said here and whats true and what you know. Maybe you need to pray for them more than they need to pray for you... cause who is really off track with God?

Random Rant and Conversation

As I am sure all of my loyal fans have noticed, I have been conspicuously absent for about a week now, with many goings on in life. First of all, I have been thinking of the loss of a friend, Mr. Ralph Moore, and his family. Secondly, the Thanksgiving fiasco of having to go here and there, and no one telling me until the last minute that my plans were crap, then what I WOULD be doing, which always seems to conspicuously crap on me. Who knows? Was that even a sentence? Seemed more like a rush of feeling. Oh, well!

Today, after the funeral, I was driving home and began to think, what would people say at my funeral? What would people think about me? Who would even come? Then I, of course, realized I didn't care, and turned the radio up. It's not that I am negative thinking, but I can't let other people's opinion of me cause me to not live my life the way God and I intend for it to pan out. I love how while I am visiting the family at the mortuary today, I get accosted by an old man from my former church who irrationally invites me to come to his Sunday School class this week. It's true, we haven't moved our membership, but we haven't attended that church in over two years. We left, not mad, but with the reason that there was nothing there for us. Now, he is asking me to come into a class where the ages range from 10-100, and the invitation itself is more of an insult. I did try so hard to politely decline, when he replied to me, "Well, what is it?"
How do you answer this question? Especially of someone who has been a member of the church for two months, and never attended the church with you? I just had to excuse the comment and move on.... too much otherwise to do.

On a good note, I have finished my Christmas shopping. I was holding out for Black Friday when I got an email invitation to pre-shopping event and finalized my list.

Well, I have to go now... I am hoping to be back on topic with lots more info soon... this was, just an update!

Please Mr. Turkey............

Here we are again. Just two weeks ago we were sending our kids door-to-door in search of sugary delights, and now another indulging holiday is upon us. We are soon to be celebrating Thanksgiving, the day when we are grateful that the Native Americans taught us to farm and grow food to harvest and shared their bounty with the early settlers. Of course, we weren't that grateful, because in just a few short years, we ran them off of their land and put them on reservations, killed a few of them, shattered their culture and berated them. Of course, fair is fair, they now make a killing off of us in their resorts and casinos.


But, back to the Thanksgiving Holiday. The only really endearing part is when the family all gathers round and says Grace. That's when the really fun part starts. During the morning hours, you have your three classifications of people. The first group are the food prep people. They are slaving and sweating in the kitchen, working their fingers to the bone to get lunch or dinner ready. They have to prepare tons of food for everyone in the family, most you don't even know, and have it ready at a certain time. They have no time for you, no time for the holiday and most really are on a prescription for Xanax by noon. The second group is the whatever group. They sit around like it is any other day off of work or school. Get up when they want to, do what they want to, etc., until someone drags them to the big dinner.


The absolute worst one is the Thanksgiving lover. They are the tackiest person you will ever meet. They show up at your house early, always early, wearing either a sweater with a giant turkey on it or an early Christmas sweater they bought at Cracker Barrel. They have to tell you HOW GOOD your house smells, without offering to help do anything, except lug their 10 pound newspaper into your living-room floor and start dissecting sales papers and telling their other yuppie counterparts where they are going to be the next morning to shop at 3:00am to get a DVD player for a dime. Then when you inevitably get stuck beside them at the table, they tell you all the fun stuff they do or are going to do on the OTHER SIDE of the family. Then, no matter the time, they will sample some dessert and inform you they have to leave in order to get to Garden Ridge. They whisk out the door like a flash leaving crumpled piles of the non-essential sales papers behind like tumbleweed. These are the people you will see next at Christmas (with the same tacky sweater perhaps) and not again for the whole next year.
The fun part of Thanksgiving comes with the kids. Since there is no tree up (usually, though it's getting earlier now) you can mess with the younger kids and invite them outside to hunt eggs. It's not fun however, when you have black and blue kneecaps where they punch you when they figure out it's a trick and there are no eggs. Then you have the really old people you can have fun with telling them good things like, "Did you see F.D.R. in the parade this morning?" or even my favorite "This is the best Christmas dinner ever."


Thankful and just plain full, the next thing we do is waddle into the living room to turn on a football game. There's always plenty of relatives who are (in their own mind) a better commentator than the pros on the tube. Then everyone complains that they had too much and they won't do it again, knowing well and good that they will. The kitchen people are totally exhausted, knowing there are tons of dishes ahead, but so relieved to stop that they are half hanging out of the oven and sitting on the door as a bench. That's when the rudest of the rude come into the kitchen, deposit their plate by the sink and tell them how good their meal was, walking off before they were asked to help do the dishes.


In the South, we also generally serve cornbread dressing with our turkey. One of the other favorite staples of the day is hearing the folks argue about whose recipe is best. Then they have to compare their cooking style to those who have gone on before. They are more than happy to tell you what you didn't cook right, put too much or not enough of, or how you could have just done the whole thing better.


I know I am going to take some heat from people telling me that this is mean and not the way that their family does things. I know not everyone does it the same way, but you all know someone through comparison to everyone in this story. It's not meant to be everyone's family, but I can assure you, it's mine!

Thoughts during a rain... what I would do differently.

Last night I was sitting at a table at Starbucks, sipping a hot cup of coffee, watching the rain and listening to my wife and two of our friends reflect back on their years in high school. In this motley crew, I am the "senior citizen" being a decrepit 29 years old, but let's face it, I'm not 100. They were talking about who was having kids, who had already had them, who had gotten married, all the usual stuff. Of course the subject turned inward too (as to when WE were having kids) and I always step back on that one. Evelyn always handles it well, saying "when it happens, it happens."

I then started thinking back to my high school years. I was a student at Woodmont High in Piedmont. However, I wasn't really the best person I could have been. That was a point in my life where I was impressionable and made a fool of myself more often than I should have. I used snobbery to defend against peer pressure and made myself the butt of too many jokes to try to save face. Even upon an occasion or two, I let other people influence me into doing things or saying things that I shouldn't have.

Then I remembered after graduation, when we opened the restaurant in Summer '97 and all the perils and pitfalls that came and went over those next few years. Suddenly in this situation is where I began to see that life is more than a petty existence and that there was more to me than the sum of my parts. I began to stand and grew a backbone. I forged true friendships and quit thinking so much about what someone thought about me. However, my revelation came too late. I was past those years and would never have them again. I didn't have the network of longtime close friends that most people graduate with.

Then like a clap of thunder I was back in the conversation in front of me. The story had changed to tales of teachers and scandals, but I was still caught in the first part. I guess I will always wish I had done things differently in my teens. I didn't have to act stupid, dress funny, and do insane things to get people to like me or to prevent me from being hurt if they didn't. I realize that the things more important were the things that were me and would have brought me closer to others rather than pushing me away. My wife and my friends have these memories and these relationships, and though I have gained many friends in the days after Woodmont, I feel an emptiness because I didn't take advantage of the gift God put there for me.

The World Wasn't Ready for Ross Perot

Before I begin, let me say, "I'm Dwayne Strickland, and I approved this message." Now, that being said, I want to talk about the election. Not the 2008 election. I want to talk about the 1992 election. Sixteen years ago we had an unusual situation in the United States. For the first time in a while, a third major candidate was on the scene. Now, we have all seen our share of guys like Pat Buchanan who run every four years and have since 1890, but this guy was a serious contender. Good ole Ross Perot. Before his brief "withdrawal" from the campaign, he was ahead in the polls to the point that he could have cinched the election. Then he dropped out of the race and re-entered, which many Americans believed damaged his credibility. He says it was because Republican operatives were threatening to disrupt his daughter's wedding.

To set the scene completely, I've gotta tell you about the two other guys that were his contenders. First of all, George H. W. Bush, the incumbent president. He was a Republican, former VP under Reagan, and had tons of Washington experience. But we really couldn't believe this guy. Remember "Read My Lips?" Also, his wife, well I think it was his wife, was out of town frequently as a body double for the Quaker Oats man. Then you had good ole Sonny Bubba Clinton, the dark-horse candidate from Arkansas. Here's the man who dodged the draft, smoked but didn't inhale marijuana, and campaigned in every McDonald's around the country just because he stopped there for a snack. There was clearly enough room here with these two that giant rat who teaches martial arts to tiny turtles could have won the election by a landslide.

Ross began as a salesman for IBM, selling his yearly quota in two weeks. He left IBMM to found Electroinic Data Systems. He sold it to GM for several billion dollars. As you can see, the guy wasn't dumb. However, was it because he was smart that we disliked him? People made fun of his voice. People made fun of his height. People even made fun of his billions, but people couldn't make fun of or refute the fact that the guy was smart.

He had "business" ideas about how the government should be run. He was accustomed to making a profit on his work, so this guy knew how to watch pennies. God forbid we have someone in Washington that can do that. He also didn't need the money from that PAC's and the other lobbyist... God forbid we have someone in office that's not there for the money. He spent his own money for the most part to cover his campaign. He even bought time on Primetime TV, all three networks, to show us what his ideas were. He made sense. He had a sure fire plan, and his past stood as an example that he didn't take crap off of anyone, he didn't back down and he knew how to do things right. Bubba and Grandpa's didn't.

Well, then came election day. America went to the polls and 103 million people voted. Ross got a whopping 18.9% of that vote and no electoral votes. That's pretty bad for a man who was in the lead a few months before. He had suspended his campaign, trying to stand by his family. He had said the phrase "you people" (just a synonym of y'all to me) to an NAACP group. He had been mocked and ridiculed. So, why did he lose? Was it because of his faults or because of his successes. Was America not ready for an intelligent man in Washington? I guess not.

Our Wedding Day

I guess the best title ever for this would be, "How Not To Have Your Wedding," unfortunately to Evelyn and I, these were the moments to remember. Though that day they may have seemed utterly chaotic, looking back they are hilarious and definitely memorable.

Having been in several weddings through the years, my first as a ring-bearer and many others as a musician, I had grown to despise the pomp and circumstance that surrounds a typical wedding. Not that they aren't wonderful for those who enjoy them, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Evelyn and I talked about it several times and she eventually gave in to my request not to have a big wedding. We had decided that we would get married on a weekday (because it fit best in our schedule at the time) and would have a small outdoor ceremony with close family only and her former minister would perform the ceremony.
Everything was okay until the day before the wedding. Incidentally, October 31st. It was that night that my dad began to have some problems and was taken to St. Francis Hospital, and admitted. My mother called and said that they didn't want us to change our plans, just to go ahead and have the wedding if we wanted to. So, back to the discussion with Evelyn, we decided that since dad was in the hospital and we had picked out a date already (11/1, which is EASY for a husband to remember) we would see if we could just have the service at the St. Francis chapel.

We called mom and she arranged everything beautifully with the hospital in a matter of minutes and we were on our way to having the wedding. Then it hit again. Evelyn got a call from the minister saying that she had developed a blood infection and was being rushed to Anderson Hospital. Now, this would have MAYBE worked out if all the sick people had gone to one hospital, but no such luck. At this point in time we were both determined this was going to happen, no matter what, and viewed it as a test of our faith and love.

I went to my trusty old friend, the internet, and began searching for "preachers for hire" and was shocked that there were some out there. Of course they wanted an arm and a leg to do it. So, intrigue and thriftiness hit me all at once. One of my friends was a Notary Public and I said that SHE could perform the ceremony, if I just gave her a set of vows to go by. So, on the way to the hospital, dressed and prepped with hope in our hearts, I got her on the line. She and her boyfriend were on their way out to eat dinner with some friends, but agreed to stop by the hospital and "do the wedding" before they went. By the time we got to St. Francis, more good news hit. Dad was being put on a medication and they would not let him go down to the chapel. Fiery and ever determined, Evelyn said we would just get married in the room then. And that is what we were set to do. Then the nurses came and took dad for a test that was going to take three or four hours. Mom insisted that we go ahead and do it, as did he, so five hours past the time that we were supposed to get married, we got married. My mom served as "best man" and my mother-in-law as my wife's matron of honor. When my friend, the notary, got there, she had already been drinking, so she was in good humor to make this whole thing fit together. Her boyfriend was so "in love" with her, that he literally clung to her side as she performed the ceremony. We finally had to get him to back up, so Evelyn and I could fit in the ceremonial arch, aka the Hospital Doorway. Anyway, we got married that day, November 1, 2006.

No one ever believes the story when we tell it. I mean, who would? The thing is it's really too ridiculous to make up, and I don't even have that great of an imagination. Anyway, I am posting a picture too so you can see for yourself. I don't think we could win the oddest wedding ever, but we're close!

Two years in the slammer!

From my earliest years, my parents never celebrated (well to any extent) their wedding anniversary. The only time I can remember witnessing or hearing anything about my mom getting something from dad was the year he sent her a dozen roses at work, and then she had to pay the bill for the flowers. More than most, she was polite to the florist and nice enough to get by with dad in her insistence that he had better not do anything like that again. So, as you can see, I didn't grow up with the most illustrious example of the anniversary celebration, even though my parents were happily married for a little over 30 years when my dad passed away in 2007.

This being said, tomorrow brings a new test to my creativity and my ability to perform in an arena that I have hardly any experience in. Two years ago tomorrow I married my wife in what was surely one of the most unusual weddings ever to take place (I will post another blog just about it for those who haven't been regaled with the story.) Last year we were in the middle of moving and in the aftermath of family tragedy, so I was able to get by without having to make a huge deal of the anniversary, but still at least remember it. This year, I have been getting hints for the past month about flowers, candy, dinner, dancing, and a new Lexus (yeah right) as things that are seemingly a little more than expected to appear at some time tomorrow.

I started this week putting some things together (yes, kinda the last minute) but she got her anniversary present early, her idea, so the biggie was covered. The web has given me a vast library of information to surf to find ideas for little things to do, and places to go eat, etc. On top of that, everyone I know recommends a restaurant to me and tells me how nice it is. ( Thanks mom, I do know that McD's has Double Cheeseburgers for a dollar.) I have muddled through all the ideas and have finally made my plans, reservations, and even considered buying a flower or two and paying for them myself.

NOW, what I don't think is fair is I don't get flowers, I don't get candy, I don't get my dinner bought by her, and when you get down to it, I actually used MY money to pay for MY anniversary present. It seems to me that in the grand scheme of things I am not getting the best end of this deal. But, here is where the big BUT comes in. I am not the one who has to live with me. My neurosis, my sometimes stubborn mindset, my far-fetched ideas and my banging on a piano at 3:00AM. This being said, I think it's all fair and things are even. She has to put up with a lot from me, and most of it would drive anyone crazy, but she shoulders it very well. I think I am the lucky one in the relationship, and that opinion has nothing to do with my self-centered attitude.

I guess as much as I hate to admit it, because it sounds all MUSHY... I love her with all my heart and I am glad that tomorrow we will celebrate two years... and I look forward to many, many more.

P.S. - I could have REALLY done without a mother-in-law, though :-)