It's 1970 and 18-year-old Howie White, who has lived most of his life at Good Shepherd Home for Children in northeast Tennessee, must leave and find his own way in the world. But having lived for fifteen years in a very well ordered religious and social environment, Howie discovers what that real world is really like: complex, odd, sometimes dangerous. Boarding a bus in his hometown of Bridgeport, Howie makes his way across the state from Knoxville to Nashville to Memphis to rural Arkansas and encounters new age oddities, sexual awakening, the drug culture, racial conflicts, and the meaning of the blues, all framed by a burgeoning war in Vietnam and a powerful musical counterculture. To survive, Howie must come out of his shell, even if it means forsaking some deeply ingrained Gospel lessons. In this great big messy world, it is time for him to move out and move on. Life down the road. For Howie, it is a very strange step in the right direction.