ISawArkansas

Our fundraising effort is interesting. First person in the door said, “Here’s $50 for a subscription but I’ll still pick the paper up when I’m out. Don’t mail it to me.” Her career had been in newspapers.

Second was a man who must have dressed at daybreak. He was wearing a leather jacket and stocking cap. He walked in around 11 a.m. and was way too warm, but knew he had to wear it or carry it. He said his $8 classified ad brought him a thousand dollars in business. He paid for four more ad runs.

A woman opened our front door so quietly she startled us. She also was bundled up for fall temperatures. She took off her hat, sat down with relief, and told us her vision for this paper. She handed us a thousand dollars and said she would do that once a year, every year. She talked to us eye-to-eye and matter-of-factly. Her paragraphs were full of compliments.

Then there was a man, or at least someone using a man’s name, who wrote that if we “weren’t so biased we might’ve lasted longer.”

My first inclination was to write back and thank him for reading the Independent, then add that I thank my lucky stars I’m not his dog.

What pierced us right through the five layers of aura was that these people who came out of the woods or motels to help us were all poor people, or at least people who only scored a C- in financial planning. They were making a sacrifice to help us.

 We were intrigued by the one who said we were biased. Which stories, columns, cartoons made him think that? We print every side we’re offered and ask every side we know to ask. We print questions and answers.

Columns are personal opinions and we sought columnists to write about what they know best. Gardening, fishing, astrology and rural-life thoughts. They didn’t ask us, we asked them.

“Bias” is how television news has changed. Not a story is told without adjectives. Tragic, shocking, petrifying!  After they’ve said all that, they close with “Thankfully…” Whaaat?

Network and cable news are punctured with opinion. If presenters would relay the news and rely on us to decide if it’s horrible or commendable, we might pay better attention. You know – think for ourselves, not monastically accept what someone we don’t know is reading to us.

A small family-owned newspaper is no different than any other business except that it’s not like any other business. We type up what we hear at a meeting or a gathering about giant corporations taking a sudden interest in acquiring inexpensive Arkansas land for projects that seem more harmful than beneficial.

Reading a community newspaper is like sitting on a park bench. You’re alone and unbothered.

Reading a newspaper sounds so retirement age. One woman even told us that Eureka Springs is a retirement town. Then she said she talked to people in California who said they had heard of Eureka Springs, “the biker town.”

Neither is accurate, and both are partly true.

Eureka Springs is a town of mountains, music, art, fresh air and good food. It’s not on the way to or from anywhere big. Its original attraction was the free one – water that had properties that blended well to improve human health. But it cost people money to sustain it.

Eureka Springs is different. “Different” in the sense that people deliberately chose to be far away, geographically and mentally, from wherever they’re from. Different because they’re not easily herded but are willing to come together for achievement and parties. They chose to live where people are smart, funny, unrestrained and genuine.

It’s surprising that a newspaper would survive here at all. Someone told us that this is 2023 and we’re obsolete. We found that inspiring.

We’re not retired and we’re not bikers. We’re not businesswomen but we do take care of business. We’re consistent and spontaneous. It’s said that beggars can’t be choosers, but we’re both.

We’ve provided a free newspaper and free Fun Guide for 12 years. We need money. We’re not asking anyone to feel sorry for us, we’re asking people who believe in free press, free people, to help keep it so. We’re not a tax deduction, we’re committed women who might end up being goatherders, but this is our best shot at providing everyone who reads us with the option of kissing us off or kissing us all over.