Charlotte Christmas Lights Display Locator

I needed to score big on a couple of local Christmas light displays to entertain my brother in law's kids. So I sent out a couple of tweets asking for a little help.

Over the last few days I got a couple answers via the back channel that pointed out some that sound promising.

First up is the Penguin drop and Penguin Roller Coaster just off Providence Road near Fairview at 501 Mammoth Oaks Drive Charlotte, NC 28270. The display is reported as "painstakingly put together and a must see" another email said: great show and "wait for Santa to soar over the roof".

Then over to the SouthPark area and One Morrowcroft Center between Colony and Morrison Blvd for an upclose look at a couple of giant toy soldiers.

Next stop 7323 Sherwood Forest Drive Charlotte, NC 28226 a dead end street off Colony between Rea and Carmel. Reports are that one house it totally maxed out and the neighbors area pretty impressive as well.

On down Colony which becomes Rea Road to take in the lights at the shopping center at Colony at Rea, The Shops at Piper Glen at Rea Road and Bevington.

Then making a right turn onto Bevington and across Elm Lane to 6400 Cape Ferry Court Charlotte, NC 28277.

Back to Rea Road and south towards the Stone Crest Shopping Center.

Then Kevin Cook's House at 10732 Honeynut Drive Charlotte, NC 28277 which is reported as one of the sharpest displays out there.


Check out Kevin's home above and his web page which is here.

Then head east along Ballentyne Commons Parkway crossing Providence Road turning into McKee Road and eventually Pleasant Plains to find your way to 1100 Aringill Lane Charlotte, NC 28105. This one is aways back in the subdivision but it might be worth the look.

Later catch Independence aka 74 to Indian Trail and the Lake Park development where the family at 4019 Lake Charles Way Indian Trail, NC 28079 goes nutty with lights and a low wattage FM station they also have a web site which is here.

Other places folks were kind enough to let me know about:

7761 Windsor Forest Place Harrisburg, NC 28075 The Naylor Family Christmas Web site is here.

133 Springtime Lane Morresville, NC 28115 James Family Christmas - the web site is here.

16201 Raptor Court Charlotte, NC 28278

If you know of a really fun Christmas lights display please post a comment or back channel me. I'll update this list and the reports as emails come in.

Here's another link that was sent my way "UglyChristmasLights.com" photos of over the top Christmas Light displays.

Un-confirmed Displays in Charlotte:

14004 Loch Loyal Drive

411 E Dixon Street

8733 Sam Dee Road

Fuel Pizza on Central Avenue and CMPD Officer Serve Up X-Rated Entertainment

Direct from a Cedar Posts reader:

NEWS FLASH: A CMPD officer just "resigned" after reports of him having sex inside the Fuel Pizza men's room on Central Avenue! Several patrons of the restaurant called police after "seeing" the sex act performed!

Witnesses say they saw an on-duty uniformed Charlotte officer engage in a sex act while on duty.

A quick call to Fuel Pizza on Central Avenue confirms the x-rated story is true and WSOC confirms that the officer in question is Hamlett Almendarez of the Eastway Division who was hired in 2007.


Almendarez and unidentified Woman

On Saturday, police officials told WSOC that Almendarez had resigned, but would not say why.

When asked about the incident at Fuel Pizza, CMPD officials would not comment.

The incident comes just weeks after Eastway officer, Marcus Jackson, was accused of numerous sex crimes while on duty.

Four Mile Creek

The sound of rain bounces off my deck and fills the air with the steady hush of spring in the making. Sputtering cascades of water splash over the edge of my home's gutters, neglected and full of the leaves from winter past. It's a steady and welcomed rain after a long summer and fall drought.

The trouble with living in the same place all your life is that memories are a burden and I feel it necessary to tell everyone I know that the sprawling development and golf course where I live was once a farm, far removed from the traffic that now boarders it on all sides.

Years ago and only 200 yards from where my home is today, was a barn and not far from there a farm house which over looked a large green pasture, a hundred cows and a couple of never really happy to see you bulls that once roamed this place. A place that now for the last 15 years I've along with a dozen other homeowners have called home and that golfers know as a long par five over the creek and up the hill with a well protected green.

Behind my home, Four Mile Creek cuts across the emerald green second fairway and flows towards the number one tee, then it runs along the ribbon of grass that is number ten and darts across the narrow number 11 fairway before ducking into the woods and out of sight.


It is a creek that was once part of my childhood. During spring's heavy rains, my friends and my brother and I, would float a couple of canoes down the creek. We knew that if we kept going, stayed away from the dreaded diamond backed water moccasin copper headed cotton mouth snake that dangled from the tress and swam in the creek that we could make it all the way to the Atlantic ocean. Of course only once did we venture far down the creek but when we did we saw things we haven't seen before or since.

A week of rain had turned Four Mile creek into a Mississippi like muddy river. The four of us in our two canoes glided past cypress and pine trees, over rocks we'd normally have to portage around, over rapids and most important over the barbed wire fences that crossed the creek every few thousand yards.

In the Carolina's the standard farm fence is a combination of varmint wire (four feet of little squares on the bottom ever increasing in size) and two strands of barbed wire added to the top. Varmint wire is used to keep the varmints out, little ones on the bottom and bigger ones like fox on top. You have to run two strands of barbed wire to keep the cows from pushing the fence down, the whole thing was held in place by cedar posts unless there was a good sized tree handy.

These fences were our worst adversary, without the heavy rain and the flood, floating down Four Mile Creek was impossible. I still have the scars of a few entanglements with barbed wire fences to prove it.

When Four Mile ends it spills over a dam into another deeper and wider creek that also rises out of its banks when there's a heavy rain, if we were ever fearful it was probably when we realized we had simply floated over the dam that normally ended our leisurely trips down the creek in the past. This was the dam that in the past had always said go "home boys".

Realizing we had passed into the forbidden zone we kept going, amazed at our luck and the new perspective of our world. Everything looked different from the creek at well past flood stage. We passed cows and rusted tractors and suddenly became Louis and Clark ignoring the no trespassing signs presumably nailed by Indians to keep explorers out. We were enjoying our freedom and sense of adventure when our pristine world of spring sunshine and fresh air suddenly changed to a horrid stench as we passed the outlet for the county sewage treatment plant, but we pressed on.

Sometime late in the afternoon we decided we'd had enough of the Tom Sawyer Huck Finn lifestyle, tired and hungry we wanted to go home but as in real life sometimes you just have to keep going not knowing where you'll end up. Finally miles from home we came to road and a bridge that crossed over the swollen river and decided the water born life had lost its novelty and it was time to return to the civilized world.

We hiked a short way down the road to an small store with two old men right out of the movie deliverance, there we used a pay phone to call home. But the dime deposited into the slot marker 5-10-25 wasn't enough as to our great surprise it was a long distance call. A couple of quarters later, David's mother was on her way with the family Ford station wagon. Yes this was in the days before cell phones.

I can't even image what the men in the store or David's mother thought as she never said a word, but to us four Carolina boys exploring our world, it wasn't a big deal at all that we had traveled nearly 14 miles and into South Carolina by canoe in an afternoon.

The rain slows and then the warmth of the sun covers the pristine golf course where I live and the cows do not. From my deck and I can see that Four Mile Creek has once again slipped out of the banks that constrain her and I long for a simpler time, an old canoe and an entire day to explore the world.

Welcome to the Big Time Charlotte!

Dark clouds are forming but Wow Charlotte, look at all you have....

You have Cheney and Sharpton in town during the same week Forbes.com a national publication announced that Charlotte is ranked as the 9th most miserable city in America, a NFL team (Panthers went 7-9) kind of, a NBA team (Bobcats are 16-30) kind of, soaring crime (highest violent crime rate of 140 largest cities in the country), strip clubs with nightly shootings, school system with more gun packing students than straight A students, government corruption out the ass, a spineless county commission and a mayor who is so convinced he's done a great job, that he is running for governor so he can spread the joy to the entire state.

I miss the days when Jim and Tammy Fay were your only news items.

An Easter Story

Years back, when Charlotte was a lot smaller and the pace of life a lot slower, an Easter Sunrise Service was held at the local high school.

As the headlights of a hundred or so cars streamed into the parking lot, the crimson and purple hues of the sun's first rays began to touch the far eastern corners of the horizon, while the birds sang like a wonderful orchestra of nature.

It's not hard to see the hand of God on Easter Sunday in the Carolina's. Azaleas, Dogwoods, rainbow colors of flowers all in bloom and Carolina blue skies which might explain the large number of churches in the Carolinas. I think there are 87 on the Charleston Peninsula alone, I know there are twice that many in Charlotte and the biggest of which is Calvary.

(www.calvarychurch.com)

Calvary is so big that it's pipe organ is second in size only to that of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. It is a big church, so big it has escaladers to the two balconies. Calvary, known as "The Pink Church" or the Mary Kay Cathedral as it's been called, was founded by Dr. Ross Rhodes who at the time was senior pastor. Dr. Rhodes would make a believer out of Satan if given the chance.

My grandmother used to tell us to sit up straight in church so that God knew we were paying attention. On this Easter Sunday, the frosty cold aluminum bleachers of Providence High School Football Stadium made certain we were all paying attention.

The hot coffee and warm biscuits from Bojangle that they handed out, helped ease the chill but it was so cold, that I soon began to plot an exit back to my car.

I'm a morning person, most of the time and I love to watch the sunrise. Cold on the other hand I'm not nearly as fond of, so I thanked my sister who was kind enough to bring an extra blanket to sit on.

Before the small choir had finished the second verse of the first hymn, my biscuit was cold and my coffee gone.

In the faint half light of the early dawn Dr. Rhodes rose from his seat and walked over to the podium, for all practical purposes it was still dark.

His sermon was simple….. his first words where..

"He Has Risen!"

And with that voices came to life through the gathered crowd as these words were repeated and rose on wisps of steam from our breath which filled the cold morning air.

Dr. Rhodes continued…

"Now if this had just happened today, on this Sunday morning, we would have proof! There would be satellite trucks, and news media everywhere. Larry King would be live with eyewitnesses to interview, and there would be full page photo spreads in USAToday, the New York Times and the Charlotte Observer. There would be a "film at eleven" on television that would show the massive stone rolled aside and for the next forty days Jesus himself would hold press conferences right up until ascension.

And he would tell the world: "Hey, I'm back for I have risen!"

"But, because this single event occurred nearly 2000 years ago we don't have a film at eleven, but we do have eyewitness accounts and interviews with the Larry King of the day Mark, and his interview is right here".

And as he spoke those words, Dr. Rhodes held up his bible the one he has carried for nearly 40 years and proclaimed.

"It says right here…" HE HAS RISEN!

With that a flock of Canada Geese flew over head no more than a dozen feet above the bleachers, winging there way no doubt to eternity and just as suddenly the sun rose above the horizon and bathed the bleachers in wonderful light and warmth that you could feel all the way through to your soul.

And I have got to tell ya ... I don't know how Ross Rhodes pulled it off but his timing was perfect. Within an instant the chill in the air was gone as a new day had begun.

Now years later Dr. Rhodes message, and that Easter sunrise service is still a very vivid memory.

Dr. Rhodes' message has always been simple… "Believe in the Lord thy God and thou shalt be saved" Period!

No fancy church or nearly drowning style of baptism, pilgrimage to Mecca, or giving up a certain amount of your paycheck, no course of study, no special communion, no specific number of Sunday school sessions or bible study attendance required, just one simple thing.

"Believe in the Lord thy God and thou shalt be saved" just Believe!

OK I'm done preaching now go color those Easter Eggs! and not the chickens!