"It's a state of mind, but I'm not going to apologize for that."

Indeed, David Dick not only does not apologize for his attachment to Kentucky's land and people; he has written a testament to the values, strength, colorful character and depth of the 'quiet Kentuckians' who live out good lives in what much of the world would consider a place where time stands still.

"The truth of it," he says, "lies as certain as a feather, lightly on the land, a sign that it belonged to those who chose to soar. The waftings of a feather are the stories of a people."

People like his former teachers, Miss Sudie and 'Biz' Weathers. Like Joe Creasono and Hazel Penn Roberts. Willis Willyard, who's afraid farming is becoming a big business: "I hate to plow ground, but when I do, I like to plow deep." Granny Toothman, 85 and still advising people to : "Dream and make your dreams come true." Or Haydon Coyle, 74 and blind for 40 of those years, caning chairs and coon hunting.

"I work to suit myself," he says, "quit to suit myself, and if I take a notion I go a-fishin' or a-coon huntin."

George Fugate, more than 100 years old, never went to college and never owned a car, saved a little of every dollar he earned and became wealthy. Of all the things that tend to mess people up, he says, "it's greed. It'll kill you."

Much of David Dick's writing, though, concerns his own 'quiet life' as a Bourbon County farmer and his former work as director and professor at the University of Kentucky School of Journalism (he retired in 1996).

As a shepherd, watching over his flocks, he is a different (person) from the man the world knows as a former Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent.

The shepherd grieves when lambs die, yet he understands farming: "Our sheep are not pets. They are animals, whose purpose is to provide food for humans."

A weakling lamb seems to survive against all odds, and Dick knows he should put it to sleep but keeps on trying to keep it alive, even by praying.

"Farmers have to save just about everything to make ends meet. It's a real problem, damned if it isn't."

When the lamb dies: "I buried it. And a part of me died with it."

I grew up on a farm, knowing that my bottle-fed pet lambs were destined to wind up on dinner tables, and I know how he felt when he buried part of himself with the helpless lamb.

Maybe David Dick's essence is his quest for 'peace at the center,' the peace some of us can find only through simple living and simple acceptance of that life, the rural lifestyle that the 'quiet Kentuckians know and love.