16th December 2005
Full circle…
You know how every once-in-a-while someone that you knew or were friends with once-upon-a-time comes back into your life? Maybe someone mentions her name or you see him at the store and its like seeing a ghost.
It wasn’t at all like seeing a ghost, but last night Chris Hoff came to GR to hang out. Chris was my roomate my first semester at Calvin. He transferred to Grand Valley State University after one semester and I had only seen him once or twice since - and not at all for a the last two years. Maybe a month ago I had heard from one of his high school friends (who is a student at Calvin) that he had been living in DC working, but he was thinking about coming back to Calvin to finish his degree and he was looking for a place to live. I e-mailed him and said that we had room in our house because Peter is getting married and moving out in February. Chris is probably going to be living with us next semester, so he came by last night and it was great, although there wasn’t anything exciting going on at the Madison house because most of us still had work to do for school.
I love it when people from the past come back to life like this, and it got me thinking about a kid that I’ve been wondering about for three and a half years. He was one of my roomates my second summer working at Covenant Heights - the summer before I started at Calvin - and his name is Douglas Daniels. He was from Texas - Dallas area I think - and we went running, hiking, and climbing together, as well as having amazing rock-throwing workouts on the playground at Covenant Heights and other ridiculous adventures. Some of you out there reading this have undoubtedly heard some of my stories about Douglas and I, but the one that is both funny and relateable is from the time when we got pulled over in his truck. We had just been running so we were shirtless, and we both had long dirty hair and undoubtedly smelled like mountains. The cop pulled us over just a hundred feet from the camp and so a small crowd of kids and counselors gathered watching the ordeal. We had been going 7mph over, but the officer caught us surprise with his line of questioning:
“Have guys you been smoking any marijuana today?”
“No, sir…”
“Do you have any marijuana in the vehicle?”
“No, sir, we work at that Christian camp right there…”
“Well, I’ve known kids from Christian camps… Ayways, are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, we’re sure…”
“The reason I’m asking is because I can smell it in the car… Do you mind if I have a look around?”
Of course we let him, and he didn’t find anything so he let us off with a stern warning to make sure we don’t let anyone smoke it up in our cars, but we all know the only thing he “smelled” in the car was a couple of kids who looked like potheads. The story being done, if anyone ever sees or hears from or knows the whereabouts of the Douglas Daniels, you should let me know.
On a final note for this post, I’m done with finals - though it never really feels like break until I’m all the way home - and I’m driving home to CO tomorrow. The weather looks to be really bad, so say a prayer for us.
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