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I drove along the narrow roads that snake through forested hollows and across hills toward Greensburg to see how the old town had changed, and to try to sort out my feeling about this paradoxical pocket of civilization that has been home to my family since before Kentucky became a state in 1792. To me central Kentucky loosely means a strip from Louisville to the Tennessee line, bordered by the Bluegrass to the northeast and the Kentucky plains to the west. Between Muldraugh Hill�part of an ancient escarpment�and the treeless Barrens near Mammoth Cave lies a beautiful maze of knobs, hollows, hills, caves, and meadows proudly proclaimed to be central Kentucky�or the “heart of Kentucky”�by those who live here. A relatively unknown region of the state, the fastness of its geography and of its people is revealed in a local saying: You have to come here on purpose. Purpose is what the central Kentuckians have plenty of. Stubbornly independent, resourceful, hardworking, they have built a solid economy while remaining free from poverty, slums, and polluted air. Though steeped in religious and family traditions, they welcome newcomers. A simple, relaxed people, they are an unexpected meshing of past and present, inviting progress but not at the cost of old-time pleasures and values. Central Kentuckians strongly resent their heartland’s being confused with other regions of the state. “We are not like other Kentuckians,” said Betty Jane Gorin, a We never had the racial problems of Louisville, and western Kentucky is like another state.” What sets the tobacco apart in the eyes of its people is the way it has pulled itself up by its bootstraps in a few decades. Though steeped in religious and family traditions, they welcome newcomers. A simple, relaxed people, they are an unexpected meshing of past and present, inviting progress but not at the cost of old-time pleasures and values. Central Kentuckians strongly resent their heartland’s being confused with other regions of the state. “We are not like other Kentuckians,” said Betty Jane Groin, a Taylor County teacher and historical society president, “There is neither the old money here that settled in the Bluegrass, nor the dire poverty and political feuds you see in eastern Kentucky. We never had the racial problems of Louisville, and western Kentucky is like another state.” What sets the region apart in the eyes of its people is the way it has pulled itself up by its bootstraps in a few decades. Former county extension agent John Ewing told me, “This country was hurting’ in 1940. We had very little except pride. It was lank building’ a house one brick at a tahm.” Looking back to the 1950s, I could see that even then “this country” had barely entered the 20th century. But now as I drove toward Greensburg along paved roads I remembered as mud lanes, or nonexistent, I saw cornfields and broad pastures dotted with cattle where I remembered only worn-out soil thick with saw briers and sassafras. On land that had known only thickets and rocks, lawns grew, spacious homes had replaced humble cottages, and small industries sprouted.

A CLOUDY FUTURE awaits Maida National Park as the government and conservationists square off over the proposed Baal dam, to be built in a narrow gap, far right, in the Andes foothills through which the Rio Benin flows. A blanket of clouds obscures the river, whose rising waters would flood the basin in the foreground to form a lake of a thousand square miles. Although the dam’s hydroelectric output would far exceed Bolivia’s most ambitious future needs, Bolivian officials insist that energy-hungry neighbor Brazil would but very spare kilowatt, providing much-needed cash for South America’s second poorest country. Opponents point to the indisputable outcome of the dam’s completion: permanent loss of yet another parcel of the continent’s rain forests. Others dismiss the dam as impractical due to the remote site and the rapid buildup of silt that would occur behind it. Cost estimates for construction alone range up to three billion dollars.