Libraries — The Quiet Beginning of Big Adventures

February 10, 2026February 10, 2026 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

On Libraries, Curiosity, and a First Card That Changed Everything

Some memories stay with you not because they were dramatic, but because they quietly opened a door.

My first trip to a library did exactly that.

It was a chilly, rainy October evening, and I was eight years old. We had just moved to a growing suburb outside St. Louis, and I was newly settled into third grade at a brand-new school. Earlier that afternoon, our teacher announced an assignment — a report on dinosaurs.

DINOSAURS!

That was all it took.

After dinner that evening, my father put on his overcoat, settled his fedora on his head, and took me to the local library. I had never been inside one before. I remember the way the doors opened into a space that felt larger than it needed to be — aisle after aisle of tall shelves, all of them filled with books that reached far above my head.

It felt like I had crossed over a threshold into a new world and was standing inside a promise.

A few minutes later I was issued my very first library card. It had my name on it. And with it, for an eight-year-old, came feelings of recognition, trust, and responsibility. I was now a certified, card-carrying member of society. We checked out several books on dinosaurs, and I carried them home like treasure. That night, reading and racing from one dinosaur illustration to the next, something quietly and permanently took root.

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The Hearth & Holler Gazette — Issue No. 3

February 7, 2026February 5, 2026 / jrmilson / 2 Comments

A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It has been a snowbound week in Honey Hill Country — one marked by delays, detours, and the steady work of getting on with things as best they could be managed.

But this week also marks a small but meaningful change for the The Hearth & Holler Gazette — one that has me genuinely excited about where the paper is heading. From time to time, select stories will now be accompanied by period-style illustrations, offering a visual record of events alongside the printed word. These images are meant to be read as much as seen — another way of noticing what has happened around us and remembering it clearly.

These illustrations are being prepared carefully, with focused attention to the Ozarks setting of Little Red Bear’s stories and the 1904 period the Gazette inhabits. They are intentionally restrained, observational, and rooted in the visual language of the time — not modern embellishments, but echoes of how stories were once quietly shown as well as told before the use of photography became commonplace.

But before we go any further, for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are, and what I am talking about

The Gazette hails from Honey Hill Country, a small, rural corner of the Missouri Ozarks, as it might have been known in the year 1904 — a time of front porches and wagon roads, oil lamps and handwritten letters, when news traveled at a human pace, and a Saturday paper was meant to be read slowly, with coffee close at hand. This is not a paper of breaking news or loud headlines. It prefers instead to notice it — the small, human-sized moments that once filled a morning without asking much in return.

The Hearth & Holler Gazette is a work of fiction — a made-up paper from a made-up place, written in the spirit of an earlier time. Any resemblance to real towns, people, or events is entirely coincidental, though we do our best to make it feel otherwise.

What follows reflects the shape of these past days: trains slowed and roads altered, plans postponed and routines adjusted. It also holds the smaller things that traveled just as surely through the cold — a door opened, a shovel shared, a joke passed along to lighten the work. Taken together, they tell the story of a week that tested patience, rewarded cooperation, and reminded us that even when progress is measured in careful steps, it is still progress all the same.

So, with that said — Please come on in. Your newspaper awaits . . . . . .

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Fresh Ink & Hot Coffee

February 6, 2026February 5, 2026 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

Fresh Ink & Hot Coffee

The presses have been busy this week.

Deep snow, stalled trains, and a bridge giving way have left their marks across Honey Hill Country — and “The Hearth & Holler Gazette” has taken careful note.

Beginning with this issue, select stories will now carry period-style illustrations alongside the printed word, offering another way of seeing what has happened and remembering it clearly.

Tomorrow is the day.
The Gazette arrives.

Are you ready?

The Gazette is delivered by way of The Writing Pages here — readers may subscribe to receive each new issue as it arrives on Saturday mornings.

A Few Things That Still Hold

February 5, 2026February 4, 2026 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

There are seasons when the world feels like it is shifting underfoot — not all at once, not dramatically, but just enough to make you question your balance.

Do you feel it, too?

Nothing has necessarily collapsed.
Nothing is clearly finished.
And yet, something feels . . . . less certain than it used to.

In moments like that, it can help to notice what has not moved.

Not as a declaration of hope.
Not as an argument against worry.
Just as a quiet inventory — the way one might check familiar landmarks after a fog rolls through.

A few things still hold.

Morning still arrives, even on the days when enthusiasm does not. Light shows up without asking how we slept or what we are carrying. It has a way of finding the edges of things — countertops, window frames, the rim of a coffee cup — and reminding us where we are.

Kindness still happens in small, almost forgettable ways. Someone pauses instead of pushing ahead. Someone listens longer than required. Someone does a thing they will never be thanked for. These moments rarely make noise, but they have not disappeared.

The body still knows how to breathe. Even when the mind is busy rehearsing worries or replaying conversations, the lungs keep doing their quiet work. In and out. Over and over. A small, faithful rhythm we do not have to manage.

Familiar routines still offer their shape. The same chair. The same walk. The same ordinary tasks that once felt dull and now feel oddly reassuring. There is comfort in doing something you have done before, even when the larger picture feels unsettled.

And beneath all of it, there is this —
You are still here.

That may sound obvious. It is not. Being here — present in the moment, trying, showing up in whatever way you can — counts for more than most of us give it credit for. Especially in times like these, don’t you think?

None of this fixes anything.
It is not meant to.

It is simply a reminder that not everything loosened at once. Some things stayed put. Some things kept their place. Some things are still doing exactly what they have always done.

If today feels heavy, that does not mean you are doing it wrong.
If you feel tired in ways sleep does not quite touch, you are not alone in that.
If all you can manage right now is to notice one small, steady thing — that may be enough. And we can do that, can’t we?

There will be time for decisions later.
There will be time for action, and clarity, and movement.

For now, it is alright to rest your attention on what still holds.

That is not giving up.
That is finding your footing.
And for now, that is enough.

‘Til next time. — Jim (and Red!)

(We’ll get back together here again on Saturday when the Gazette arrives. Hope to see you!)

If you’d like to receive these notes as they’re written, you’re welcome to follow along here.

These illustrations were created with the assistance of AI.

Lead the Way

February 3, 2026February 2, 2026 / jrmilson / 6 Comments

Having come across a line the other day that stopped me in my tracks, I wanted to share it with you — not because it was clever, but because it was so clear.

“Don’t wait for other people to be loving, giving, compassionate, grateful, forgiving, generous, or friendly . . . lead the way!” — Steve Maraboli

That simple idea has a way of lingering.

So often, we wait.

We wait for the mood in the room to improve.
We wait for someone else to soften first.
We wait for the world to give us permission to be kind.

But kindness has never needed permission.

Being loving, generous, or compassionate is not something done after conditions improve. More often than not, it is the very thing that improves them.

Leading the way does not have to be loud.
It does not require a spotlight or a platform.

Sometimes it looks like:

offering patience when impatience would be easier
choosing gratitude when complaint feels tempting
being friendly without checking first to see if it will be returned

Small acts, yes — but small acts have a way of traveling farther than expected. Like ripples on water, they move outward quietly, reaching people and places we may never know about. And isn’t that a good thing?

There is a quiet power in deciding to go first.

First to Smile.
First to Forgive.
First to offer Grace.

In uncertain or heavy times, that choice matters even more — not because it fixes everything, but because it reminds us, and those around us, of who we still are —
that we are human, and that we care.

There is no way to know who needed to see that kindness today.
No way to measure the ripple it may have started.

And that is all right. What matters is simply that the kindness was offered.

The world does not change only through grand gestures. Sometimes it shifts because one person decided not to wait.

So if there is a question about what to do today, perhaps this is enough —

Be the Loving one.
Be the Generous one.
Be the Friendly one.

Lead the way.

Doesn’t that feel like a good place to begin — leading with Kindness?

‘Til next time. — Jim (and Red!)

If you’d like to receive these notes as they’re written, you’re welcome to follow along here.

These illustrations were created with the assistance of AI

The Hearth & Holler Gazette — Issue No. 2

January 31, 2026January 29, 2026 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

A Weekly Visit of Tales, Tidings, and Old-Time Country Comfort

Welcome!

It’s been a cold and storm-bound week in Honey Hill Country.

But before we go any further, for first time visitors, it may help to know where — and when — we are.

This past week brought heavy snow and sharp cold across much of the region, drawing neighbors closer to home and closer to one another. What follows reflects that — stories of preparation, patience, quiet help, and the small moments that tend to reveal themselves most clearly when the world slows under winter’s hand.