100 Stories Strong on The Goldenrod
A look back at some of our "early days" favorites you might've missed as we hit triple digits.
100 stories.
When I launched The Goldenrod to cover central and eastern Kentucky’s small towns, hamlets and hollers way back in July 2021, this goal number for first year stories—suggested by the fine folks at the Substack Local program—felt like something I’d never be able to get my arms around. It seemed huge. Huge! I was struck with the same stomach-fluttering eagerness and humming anticipation about The Goldenrod’s journey that I used to feel as a scrape-kneed kid sizing up the massive, knobby trees in the woods behind our house.
Even though I scrambled up them with regularity—I’d proudly tell any neighborhood kid that this wasn’t my first tree-climbing rodeo—there was always the hanging-in-the-air concern that maybe, just maybe, this time my Keds weren’t going to carry me all the way to the top. But I’d get going—one foot atop the other—and something curious would always happen. On the trunk, I’d recognize a new pattern in the wood grain shaped like an mandolin, taking a small break to try and trace it down in my notebook. A few branch levels above that, I’d find the most glamorous, iridescent June bug in a patch of light, putzing around amid the blobs of molasses-sticky sap. And even further up through the canopy, I’d spy an Eastern Towhee—dressed to the nines in its finest gothic plumage—lighting off of a limb to scratch around in the shrubby brush below for a snack.
In what seemed like a blink, I’d be at the top of the tree—not even fully realizing how I’d arrived there because the details of the journey had been so dramatic and so engrossing I’d simply kept climbing: not to reach the top of the tree as a goal, but to see what magical turning point would reveal itself the higher I’d go.
Running The Goldenrod has proven to be quite similar: I didn’t even realize we’d hit the once impossible-sounding 100 story mark this week (two months early!) until a reader pointed it out. I’d been too riveted by the local tales I’ve been absorbing; and investigations that are underway; and moments of community triumph we’re sharing to notice some number.
100 local stories down—and we’re only getting started reporting on the ground from central and eastern Kentucky.
If you’ve joined The Goldenrod in the past couple of months (Hi! Welcome!) I’d love to share a few of my favorite stories from last summer and early fall that you might’ve missed. I know not everyone goes digging around in the archives when they sign up for a newsletter, so let’s bring the archives to you!
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