Mountain Lane Homesteaders

The Family Interview

Here I am once again traveling along the road of memories.............

After 24 hours of being in the car, very little sleep, and a safari ride up and down a bouldered mountain road that has made most of us a little sea sick, we were headed off for "The Interview".  Due to the fact that we had not expected a 6 mile distance from the main highway to take us well over an hour we were now pretty pressed for time as we rushed along to our hotel.  By the time we arrived we had about 45 minutes to run everyone through the shower, change clothes, and get to the bank.  Different from any interview I had ever heard of, we were ALL going!

We arrived at the bank at 4pm and were ushered in to the conference room where we all sat down at a big oval table.  Sam was dressed in his nice bankerly clothes and all the rest of us were in shorts.  There were about 4 bank officers present as well.  There were introductions and laughter over our jaunt up the mountain.  The area we were in was well known to locals.  It is recommended that you don't go up "Snitch Creek" (pronounced crick) without an invitation or you'll likely be met by someones gun!   

Once we got started into more serious matters our two oldest children sat quietly drawing and I kept the youngest on my lap whispering promises of icecream for staying nice and still. 

One of the main things I remeber that interview being about was whether or not we really were ready to live in such a small community.  We had been living in a city of 120,000 people and they were all worried we would get here and hate it.  Often the eyes were on me.  Comments like, "Our movie theater plays one movie a week on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm." "The nearest Walmart is an hour and a half away." "The newspaper comes out on Wednesdays."  We later found out that they had trouble in the past hiring employees who thought they wanted to live in a small town.  Their experience was that it was usually the husband who wanted the mountain experience and that the wife ended up hating it.  Being a hunting community there are not a whole lot of "girly" things about.  If you were a shopping addict you could forget it!  My honest response was that I couldn't say for sure having never lived in a small town but that I was fully a part of the decision process and was not being pulled along for the ride. 

The next issue: If finances were so tight, how did we plan to be able to move here if hired?  We had actually talked about this in the van heading over and had decided we would ask for some kind of a hiring bonus.  Never mind that we had never experienced that sort of fancy thing before, what did we have to lose by asking?

Sam was hysterical.  He was so relaxed it was funny.  I remember him leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head relating all the harrowing experiences of the past year during our self-employment.  Being a bank, when the inevitable question came around "Is there anything on your credit report we would need to be concerned about?" Sam got a big grin on his face, nodded his head, and replied "ABSOLUTELY!" 

I, being of sound mind, realized this was an excellent opportunity for the children and I to head off for that icecream!

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9:11 AM, Saturday, July 15, 2006 .. Posted by Kitty

I love reading about this, keep them coming. very funny too. Kitty

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9:19 AM, Saturday, July 15, 2006 .. Posted by marys4littlelambs

This is so cool! It's like a good book... you want to keep going to hear the end.

sounds so familiar

3:30 PM, Saturday, July 15, 2006 .. Posted by deedee06

Darcy, Your interview sounds a bit like David's except he was hired by a high school classmate, whose mom owns the bank, so he already knew our family. What an amazing blessing to work for a family friendly business. Looking forward to another installation of the story.......Denise