The Tennessee sky is high and soft, not like Colorado's which feels close, or wide cast over cornfields as in Ohio. The stars are visible and sometimes powerfully bright; not like the faint constellations over Boston. Tennessee roads are hilly and marked by hairpin turns that are impolite. The yards and acreage are beautiful and often shaggy, not as manicured as the horse farms to the north in Kentucky. Tennessee drivers are cautious, they brake at the first smell of a threat, and to beep is to be downright rude.

Tennessee fruits are abundant, the flowers are surprisingly vibrant and full even though they must abide weeks of dryness.

Tennessee loves its Wal-Marts, tractors, barbecue, guns. Tennessee loves Protestant church. Tennessee's Christian radio scene is first rate.

Tennessee still uses AOL e-mail addresses. Tennessee mostly calls, rather than texts.

Tennesseeans, being inland, will ferret out a swimming hole with a thirst like soldiers seeing a woman after having been entrenched for months.

Tennessee is some of the best of America, beautiful and complicated.

Tennessee is my home of one year.