Understanding Apples is a collection of short pieces about Northeast Tennessee, notably the Long Island community of Kingsport - once a locale known for violence and bootlegging. The Island was actually a sacred ground to the Cherokee Nation and the Yuchi who settled there hundreds of years prior. Before 1776 and the Battle of Long Island Flats it was said that no man could be killed on Long Island. But later the chiefs of all seven clans gathered and "signed" a treaty with the white man, giving up not only hundreds of thousands of their acreage, but millions - including the sacred ground known as Long Island. Because the chieftains' decision was not unanimous among the elders or their sons a powerful curse was placed upon the hallowed ground: No man would ever find peace there. A mere window of events is shared within the pages of this book that offer only a glimpse of what life was like thereafter.