Can it be? Do I like country music?

Can it really be that I have an affection for an up and coming country music star who cut his teeth in Iraq and wrote some twangs about it?   I know for a brief stint in my life I actually admitted an appreciation for this genre, but never since.  I was living in San Antonio and part of the resident application process to get that no-state-tax benefit of Texas was to mark that you will willingly listen to country music on the forms. How could I not like it there having to drive by “the house that garth (or was it hank or, who’s that other guy?) built.”  Anyway, this soldier turned singer Luke Stricklin, whose voice does not match his 20-something body in the photos (http://www.lukestricklin.com/ ) has some lyrics that had I been in Iraq and not at Camp Cupcake, would have touched me more than they already have.  My whopping 2 days in Afghanistan showed me enough to know that what he speaks is true and his words have a strong message about the importance of knowing how lucky we are to be born in America… to have the free will to sit on our ass, eat potato chips and curse out Oprah and the President from our trailer house… or to actually go out in the world and make something of ourselves from nothing.

I wrote a twang myself about last night – do you think I could be a star?

I was snoozin’ in my trailer house

All was quiet as a mouse

When a big black man came in my room

Just got off the plane, ain’t leavin’ soon.

(refrain):

I miss my dog, I miss my truck

I miss my trailer, and darn the luck

I got a roommate again

I got a roommate again.

I said howdy to this stranger

Made my greetings, hid my anger

While he chucked his bags through the door

So much crap, can’t see my floor

(Refrain)

two months long, I had it good

Stick me with a guy I knew they would

Thank god he don’t smell like funk

And I’m keeping the bottom bunk

(refrain)