It is no secret that when John Tinker arrived in the rural heartland of the Deep South, he was thrust into a cultural environment as different as custom-made wrought iron gates are from barbed wire. Yet this son of New England patriots and Hollywood star-makers eased comfortably into a world that is in such contrast from all that was previously familiar. “I have found my true home,” he said once and then again and now quite often. Whenever he is on location to shoot a television series, he pines mournfully for the land he has come to love.