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© 2004 Dan Brandenburg Introduction Essay for Kentucky 24/7 My Old Kentucky Home By Al Cross Kentucky is a commonwealth of contrasts. Celebrated for its many elite pleasures (Thoroughbred horses, fine bourbon whiskeys, and the annual Festival of New American Plays in Louisville) Kentucky also has more than its share of poverty and ignorance, which makes it the occasional butt of late-night television jokes. The real Kentucky, pictured in these pages, is somewhere in between. It's a state of hard-working folk, whose cleverness and toughness are exemplified by Bill Monroe and Colonel Harland Sanders, who not only invented bluegrass music and Kentucky Fried Chicken but made them international phenomena. The state is also home to Hall of Fame shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who, by embracing teammate Jackie Robinson, helped overcome racial prejudice. The great Muhammad Ali suffered racism as a child in Louisville, but the man has given the city a center that will celebrate his dramatic life and promote his values of peace and social responsibility. Our state is an amalgam of North and South. It was a slave state that did not secede but joined the losing side after the Civil War because of what it considered shabby treatment by the Union, with one gripe being that slaveholders were not reimbursed for their freed slaves. Kentucky's metropolitan areas are now more tied to the Midwest and the East, but it remains a place where the accents are mostly Southern. Life in Kentucky is shaped by the land. The Thoroughbreds grazing in the Bluegrass near the heart of Kentucky are the state's leading agricultural product and the main reason Lexington is a tourist destination. On the state's northern border, towns and cities line the Ohio River, America's first great thoroughfare and still a key lifeline. Eastward are the Appalachian Mountains, suffering from relative isolation and the economic vagaries and environmental risks of coal mining. To the west and south are a flat coalfield and a swath of tobacco, cattle, corn, and soybean farms that bespeak the essentially rural nature of Kentucky. (In the region's 1st Congressional District, the tallest building in Hopkinsville, the largest city, is a grain elevator.) In most places, life revolves around courthouse towns, of which there are many, because Kentucky has more than its share of counties--120 for 4 million people. Ask Kentuckians where they're from, and they're as likely to name a county as a city. Through most of the 20th century, Kentucky changed less than other states and fell behind. In-migration was light and out-migration was heavy as natives left for better jobs. In a sense, people were Kentucky's leading export. The state still ranks high in native-born population, but that's changing: The 1990s saw education reforms, more people moving in than moving out, and a sharp decline of the tobacco culture that shored up small-town economies and small-farm values. That evolution has also made Kentucky a leading auto manufacturer. Still, as Kentuckians have migrated to new factory towns and metros, they yet have faith that their country home remains a special place in the heart of America. Browse    View All    My Old Kentucky Home    Hearth & Home    Hard at Work    Kentucky at Play    Reason to Believe    Our Town Photos: 151 Photographers: 33 Towns: 51

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