job offer

last night on my way into the adirondacks i passed through moriah, which is where i got the first job offer for a real grownup job in my life.

it was a long time ago.

there's not a lot i remember about a lot of job interviews i went on that year, but i remember that at this one they asked me what the last two books i'd read were.

coincidentally, i had just finished reading a large volume of american folklore and a very detailed cultural history of the lumber camps in the tupper lake region.

"really?!?" the guy said.
"yeah, really." just a happy coincidence, i explained.

it was weird, since (i'm assuming you're not looking at your map) moriah is not that far from tupper. in its heyday it was one of the towns where the logs came down to the lake.

he wanted to know why i'd been reading local history. hadn't i been called to the interview on short notice?

it had something to do with my general interest in folklore and also a game my friends and i used to play. friday nights we'd go to the library and spread out into the stacks looking for the weirdest books to bring back and read to each other. we found some awesome stuff.

anyway, i wasn't able to accept the job. he needed me to start on monday, and i needed to finish college.