beautiful east texas?

Yes, the beautiful pine tree, or pinus taedas, as it is more commonly called. You see, here in East Texas this is pretty much the only tree we have. Our economy grew out of a dependency on the harvesting of the trees. Even the area I live in is nicknamed the "Pineywoods." So, needless to say, these trees got pretty old pretty fast. As a matter of fact, all I can really remember about these trees from growing up is that they were ugly and mundane.

That is, of course, before I left the Pineywoods for college. Every time a professor asks where I'm from, I respond with East Texas. Inevitably, their response is something like this..."Oh, I love East Texas with all her tall, gorgeous pine trees! That's beautiful country out there." And the first couple of times I heard this, I laughed. What the heck?! East Texas, beautiful? No possible way!

So I'd been away from home for about a month and something hit me on the way home two days ago. Just between Centerville and Crockett, there's almost a 'wall' of pine trees. They go no further west than this point, but they dominate all the land to the east. For the first time in my life, I felt welcomed by the huge evergreens with their slim, needle-like leaves. There was something inviting about that green I'd grown up with. I don't know if it was kind of cool just to come home or if the trees really are as beautiful as my professors say. But, for the first time I could agree with the phrase "beautiful East Texas."

However, this discovery has no impact on the fact that I live among some of the craziest, most redneck, backwoods people I've ever met. But hey, it's home.