some old guy

I was going through some old e-mails and such today, stuff that I'd saved for various reasons, and reliving past memories. It brought up all sorts of memories, like the time I got stuck in between a bed and the wall at a high school lock-in at a hotel during my years in seminary.

Then I got to some e-mails from around 2006, right before I moved out here to Minnesota to start my call. There were quite a few from when I volunteered at the ELCA Youth Gathering in San Antonio. It reminded me of how, even though there were thousands upon thousands of ELCA youth and adults there, I still managed to run into a lot of great people I knew.

I wrote about my experience volunteering on the Community Life team a few posts ago, but as I was looking at some of these e-mails it reminded me of a particular story that happened. I think I shared this on my old blog, but I don't believe I've shared it on this one. If you've read it, then feel free to stop reading. But if you haven't, or want to read it again, then read on, dear friends!

At the hotel where I was stationed, I was paired with one other person, a guy named Nick who was one year out of high school. It was obvious that the high school girls in our hotel fancied Nick. They would always giggle and say hi when we walked by. One time, Nick and I were walking through the lobby on our way somewhere, and a group of girls were lounging on the sofas and chairs. As we passed them, a chorus of "Hi Nick!" rang out. Finally, one girl said, "Oh. Hi, Mark!" I was not phased. Spending two weeks with Nick made this seem perfectly natural.

As a nightly ritual, Nick and I would walk through the hallways and make sure everyone was in their rooms with their doors closed. The first night we had split the floors, and each took half. The second night, we decided that even if it took longer, it would be more fun to team up to do it. So we began patrolling the halls together.

We were walking through one of the hallways that Nick had been in charge of the night before, when we saw a doorway propped open and some girls talking loudly inside. Nick and I looked at each other and Nick said, "Why don't you take that one." So I walked up to the door and knocked on it.

The door was opened by a smiling high school girl whose smile diminished when she looked at me. "Oh... hi." she said. "It's after curfew. Why is your door open?" I asked. "I guess we just forgot to shut it." she replied. "Well, could you go ahead and shut it? And would you mind keeping it down a little?" The girl agreed and shut the door.

And then I heard her say to her friends: "Oh my gosh! NO! It was some old guy!"

Nick then revealed to me that this same room had the door propped open the night before, and he had had to stop and ask them to close the door and quiet down. Apparently, they had enjoyed this interaction and so hoped to repeat it the following night. Unfortunately, it was not repeated and they didn't get to see Nick again. Instead, it was some old guy who asked them to be quiet.

I don't think their door was propped open the following night.