2005-11-06 - 3:21 p.m. I'm back in Tennessee for the weekend. I haven't been gone very long, but things have changed so much. New stores opened, land being torn down and stripped away. When I was little the thing I loved most about where we lived was that I was less than ten miles from the country. Two roads away from it. There was this invisible line drawn between Uncle Bud's Putt Putt and Ace Hardware and beyond that line it turned country. Few franchises, if any, no subdivisions, just land. Land that gave way to hills that were always mountains covered with trees. Farms and cows and cotton and trains and small restaurants that you just knew served meatloaf. It's all changing. You have to go further out to get to the country. There are subdivisions everywhere. Kroger and Publix and Sonic. It is good to be back. Good to see my parents and my grandparents. My grandfather almost died three months ago. He is different, now, if only just subtly. He laughs more and makes more jokes. His hair almost seems softer. My family has always been one that laughed. Stories get told, jokes made, people poked fun at. But once you almost lose both grandparents in two short months, once both of them are unconscious in a hospital bed, something changes. He's loosened up. This is home. previous - next