Roméo LeBlanc died today, at the age of 81. I didn’t actually know the guy or anything, but he did get me a job offer once.

It’s like this. I was sitting in an office at UVic, doing a phone interview for a co-op job in Dawson Creek (the one that’s mile zero on the Alaskan highway, not the one that used to be on TV, populated entirely by teens).

The editor was asking me all sorts of questions, such as “if someone in town was accused of being a complete pervert, would you want to interview him?”

I was thinking, “um… no. Are you crazy?” And “exactly how cold is it in Dawson Creek in July? Do you still have to wear wool?” And, “do northern towns really have more men?”

What I actually said was that of course I wanted to interview the accused. (That’s the kind of stuff journalists are supposed to do and I was pretending to desperately want to be a journalist when really I just desperately wanted a summer job.)

Finally, at the end of the interview, he asked me to name Canada’s governor general. Through some fluke which probably involved listening to too much CBC and liking the name Roméo, I happened to know.

Apparently I was the first student to ever answer that question correctly. I was offered the job.

Which I turned down in favor of becoming a staff writer for the Commonwealth Games. That sounded like way more fun than interviewing potential creeps.

(Note to Dawson Creek editor: if you’d like students to move north, try not to mention pervs.)