The Monthly Liaison: March 2021
A little boy explores a world of robots from a corner of the Children's Library. . .
. . . and a young woman maps a road trip from a sunny perch in the Tree House.
Glimpses of Green
The ditch bank stretched to the horizon, lined by brown grass made brittle by a southern Idaho winter under a long, gray sky. The water in the ditch was dark and thick. A plastic bucket knocked against my knobby knees with each step, and the wind whipped my hair in my eyes.

We were hunting for asparagus. I was eight. I'm sure I complained. But what I remember now is the thrill of spotting a flash of green, the delight of the pop as I broke a stalk and the plunk as I dropped it in my bucket.

Spring can show up like that - spurts of green exclamation points that push their way up the brown ditch banks and through the still-cold days, changing our view of the horizon.

I walk through the Library and spot a little boy surrounded by piles of books about robots and Star Wars. I see a teenager folded into a window seat with a thick book propped on her knees. I glimpse a young woman looking out the window at Baldy and mapping a road trip to places she has never been.

I see a long horizon, and lots of shoots of green.

Jenny Emery Davidson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The Sweet Spot
by Molly! G. Goodyear, Communications Associate
Who would have guessed that the hot item at the Gold Mine Thrift in 2021 would be a ski onesie? Craig Barry, Gold Mine Manager, said that nine years ago, “Droves of them were leftover at the end of the ski season. Now friends are getting together and actually trading them around so they can have a different look for different days on the mountain.” 

This spirit of fun and creativity reflects what many of us are feeling these days. We’re emerging from a long, difficult year ready to bust out and play a little. Is it too much to say that the Gold Mine Thrift and its sister, the Gold Mine Consign have helped us thrive through the pandemic? These stores, like the Library, had to find the sweet spot of supporting the health and wellness of our community, while recognizing that we provide a vital service that people rely on.
After 10 weeks of being closed in the Spring of 2020, we reopened to a new normal of hand sanitizer, social distancing and masking up. A year later, not only are we still here, but we are continuing to provide a much-needed service and a lot of joy to the community. We celebrate the 66th anniversary of the Gold Mine Thrift on April 12, and look forward to the Spring Opening on April 15.

The 17 women who started the Gold Mine in 1955 as a means to fund the fledgling library may not have predicted what would happen to our world in 2020, but they no doubt would have believed that the institutions would continue to thrive today because they are “of the people." And through the "can do" creativity of our great community, we may have just found the sweet spot in a retro ski onesie!

Mark your calendar for Thursday, April 15, for the
Gold Mine Spring Opening! Hours: 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Join Jenny Emery Davidson, Library executive director, and
Mary Tyson, Center for Regional History director, on a special tour of the Ernest and Mary Hemingway House in Ketchum. The tour is part of Idaho Public Television's Idaho Experience program in conjunction with PBS's Hemingway film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, airing on April 5-7 on PBS stations around the U.S.
THANK YOU to Our February Donors!
Anonymous -  3
Gayle and Dr. Fred Bieker
Big Wood Landscape (2)
Elizabeth and Frank Breen
Joni Cashman and Michael Dunham
James and Barbara Cimino Foundation
Kathleen Diepenbrock and Kelley Weston
Claudia and John D. Gaeddert
Linda and Charles W. Goodyear
William S. Harvey
Carol D. Holman
J. McLaughlin
Tracy and Eric Kanowsky
Ray Ann Kremer and George Shapiro
Marcia and Donald Liebich
Penny and Chris Mazzola
Bettina McAdoo and Gordon Russell
Sarah Michael and Bob Jonas
Susan and Reuben Perin
Sara and Ben Pettit
Elaine and Michael Phillips
Narda Pitkethly
Patricia A. Radeke
Chapman J. Root II
Georgia and John Todd Stewart
Janet Swanberg
Judith Teller Kaye 
Penny and Ted Thomas
Rainier Trinidad
VERTU
The Ward Family
Gay Weake
Anita Weissberg
Anita Whelan and Richard English
Cathy Whinnery and Neil Zussman
Maryanne and Jerry Whitcomb

Tribute Gifts:
Eugenia L. Austin Calkins and Russell A. Calkins III
Graham Beal
Julia A. Bennison
Andrus Burr
Lynn Campion-Waddell and Ted Waddell
Deana and Morley Golden
Joanne and Terry G. Hogue
John and Nancy Lambert
Stefanie and Jon Marvel
Flora Mason
Lisille Matheson
Shaun Caley Regen
David Resnicow
Beverley Robertson
Catherine Rose
Jane Scott
Molly Tee
Gordon Veneklasen
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