Pineapple

After a break from LVR staff descriptions, I have a little bit of time to work on them again.

Sarah Cooley came to hate the nickname Pineapple by the end of the summer, so for her sake I will break form and refer to her by her real name throughout this post. If she comes back to LVR next summer, she wants to be known as “Aloha,” but I doubt she can pull it off. As I mentioned in my post about Moptop, LVR nicknames are irrefutable.

Sarah came to LVR with no idea what to expect– like many of the first-timers. I think she came looking for a change. She arrived a few days later than most of the staff. As she stared out the window of the car, seeing LVR for the first time, she thought the camp looked deserted and miserable. Her mom didn’t believe she would make it through the summer. Iceman instantly freaked her out with his overly enthusiastic introduction. I sized her up in her pink outfit, perfect makeup and hair and wondered if she was summer camp counselor material.

As the summer unfolded, Sarah showed the doubters – including herself – that she belonged at LVR as much as the rest of us did.

Feminism and Abortion

“One cannot be anti-choice and be feminist,” says bell hooks in her book Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.

Wait, I thought it said feminism was for everybody. Apparently it is not for me.

In high school I drew the majority of my knowledge of feminism from the pro-life movement. To me, feminism was all about women demanding the right to abort their children easily and cheaply for any reason in the name of sexual liberation. Since I don’t believe that anyone should have the right to abort their children, I naturally considered myself not a feminist.

But in college I met Christian women who share my moral values and are still very strong feminists- especially my roommates past and present, who I love dearly- and so it became necessary to rethink my framing of feminism.

Mountain Man

Sean Jeffres- Mountain Man- more commonly called Double M, earned his nickname by convincing the rest of us he was pretty hardcore.

As a former gymnast in great shape, he’s an extremely skilled rock climber. He believes that everyone should fall occasionally and that the only way to succeed is to take risks trying things that might fail. I picked up on this from taking kids bouldering with him, but would venture to bet he applies it to other areas of life as well.

Double M doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. If you try to insult him, he’ll give you a bemused grin at best. He’ll never hesitate to speak his mind. If he thinks you’re acting like an idiot, he’ll call you an idiot. He doesn’t take pains to hide the things he doesn’t like. He won’t bother himself to obey a rule if he doesn’t like it. To some, Double M is a jerk. To others, he’s a hero.

Moptop

When Ryan Meitler first worked at LVR as a junior staff member, his long hair earned him the nickname Moptop or Mopsy. As a full-time counselor this summer, Moptop didn’t have the hair anymore, but LVR nicknames are irrefutable.

A Colorado native, Moptop loves activities like rock climbing and bouldering. When free weekends came along, he was always looking for people to go out and do stuff with.

Moptop’s hyperactive personality comes out in entertaining ways. Almost once a week this summer, he would wake up in the morning with some sort of foreign accent. British was a favorite, but he has a talent for quite a few and the ability to maintain it for the entire day. His campers might think he’s crazy at first, but they seldom found themselves bored. Moptop rarely wears out; he often jokes that coffee calms him down.

Minnie

Back when Kendra Freudenburg was quiet (this lasted two days) Hawkeye declared her to be mouse-like. From then on, she was Minnie.

Minnie is always bubbling with things to share. She feels both joy and pain intensely and tends to wear her heart on her sleeve. If you tick her off, she’s going to yell at you. The guys loved to tease her because they could get a reaction every time. Minnie was always in a play-fight with someone. One of her challenges for the summer was being separated from her family and friends. The first couple weeks, it was easier to stay in contact with everyone, but as the summer went on we all had to learn to how to live without the comfort of familiar faces and voices from home. Minnie shared with my in agonizing over the draw of the internet at times when it seemed just beyond our grasp.

It impressed me that Minnie can do so well in an environment like LVR.

Iceman

Self-proclaimed Iceman (from X-Men, not from Top Gun), also happens to be known as Danny Everett. He has no problem with animal brutality- campers asked him if his name was Iceman because he was heartless after they watched him kill a fish on the dock. OK, so animal brutality might be a little harsh. He just wasn’t afraid to touch fish like the rest of us were.

Iceman was one of the first staff members I met. He and his twin brother Thin Mint picked me up at the airport in Colorado Springs and drove me to camp. My initial impressions of the twins can be summed up by these bits of conversation they offered me in that first meeting (since I didn’t know them yet, I can’t remember who said what. I’m pretty sure most of them were Iceman.)

“Just so you know, my hair doesn’t usually look like this…”

“We like the Jonas Brothers. People make fun of them because their audience is teenage girls, but they’re good musicians.”

“Do you have a tattoo? Wanna see mine?”

They had printed Mapquest directions to camp, but Iceman decided he didn’t agree with the directions. He had been to LVR before as a camper and with his youth group, and he thought he remembered the way. Thin Mint was not pleased with the plan, but he wasn’t the one driving. As we went along a never-ending gravel road winding deeper and deeper into the mountains and away from civilization, I thought, great, here I am getting lost where there’s no cell service with two guys I’ve never met before

Hawkeye

A former paramedic, Chris Ramsel got the name Hawkeye from the doctor on the show MASH, though his red facial hair makes him look more like BJ Honeycut. Hawkeye seems to have experience in a little bit of everything- as site manager he was also sometimes a wrangler, sometimes a medic, sometimes maintenance, sometimes…fill in the blank. LVR utilizes its staff and resources in every possible way.

Hawkeye won’t hesitate to make fun of anyone. He also liked to randomly call out people’s names in the dining room and tell them that Jesus loves them. He doesn’t hide his feelings well, which can be a blessing and a curse. Sometimes life is easier when people let you know if they’re ticked off.

Goliard

Josh Grote will always be Goli to me. Even though he chose to be named after medieval educated traveling singers, his nickname worked in the “golly gee” sense also. Goli is always fun to be around…as long as he isn’t mad. A man of passions, his weakness of a hot temper is made up for by his strength of enthusiasm and energy. Goli knows what he wants and doesn’t settle for anything different. The world needs some strong-willed personalities like Goli’s to make decisions and stick to them.

Goli’s other strengths are his extensive knowledge of biblical theology and his incredible singing voice. A pre-seminary music major, he could always contribute to our 20/20/20 meetings with song leadership and devotional insights. It was almost like having a pastor (and a professional singer) on staff. Goli was always striving to improve himself.

Dash

Dash has the advantage of a real name that no one ever guessed- M’leigh Rempfer. Her incredible speed as a track runner earned the nickname for this returning staff member. I could tell before I even met her that she must be something special- she came to camp a week late and everyone who already knew her couldn’t wait for her to get there. They talked about her like they loved her, and greeted her like a best friend when she showed up. Dash is one of those people that no one can dislike. She was our junior staff coordinator this summer, meaning she was in charge of all the CITs, as well as a list of extra responsibilities longer than I even know about. As program staff she had to be firm, organized, and driven. But she managed to do it all with a sweet disposition and hardly revealed how incredibly stressed she was.

Charlie

I actually have no idea how Ellen Weidner got the name Charlie- she had it long before I had even heard of LVR. Charlie gave us something that we all desperately needed this summer- food. She’s been serving LVR as the summer cook since some of her now-grown kids were working as counselors and the camp happened to be in need of kitchen help. Now an experienced veteran in mass-culinary skills, she had no idea what she was getting into when she first offered to fill the position.

Arguably few jobs at camp carry as much stress as kitchen duty.