Last Chance Gulch

One very rainy nasty Wednesday evening 22 years ago, my good husband drove me across our small state to an interview at a tiny rural library. It was for a 24 hour a week director position. It must’ve been before handicapped accessibility regulations were put into law. I climbed a tall steep set of chairs to get into the very dimly lit library, and then climbed down another set of steep set of narrow stairs into the subterranean meeting room.

Getting there had been circuitous. One dark winding road led to an even darker more winding road into seeming nothingness. The first sign I could make out proclaimed, “Last Chance Gulch” over the driveway of a little rocky homestead.

I had gotten off my student intern job at another public library, transformed myself into interview material and hopped into the warm car for the ride to this interview. I didn’t have any time to be nervous. I looked as good as I could in a buttoned-up librarian sort of way.

Sitting around the table like the twelve apostles, in that subterranean meeting room were the library’s trustees. They all took turns giving me their versions of the mission and historic details of the library, asked several questions, some a little less than professional. Finally, I was asked if I had any questions for them. I asked why the current director was leaving the position. The older man trustee in the red plaid flannel shirt piped up, “He knocked up his wife and had to find a full-time position.”

Thankfully, a few weeks later, I found out they’d hired the woman who lived next door to be their new library director.