Life at Hope College

A weekend in the life of Lampen Cottage

Meet the Men of Lampen (scroll mouse over picture to display name)

Saturday

After a disappointing loss to Davenport for the Flying
Dutchmen hockey team the night before, two former players and I decided to play
“drop-in” on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the only rink holding this form of pick-up hockey was out
in Grand Rapids.  At 9:00 AM. Which provided an excuse for Christian
to abstain from joining us.

To both my delight and dismay, I woke up to nearly eight inches
of “fresh pow” as Riley so affectionately refers to a night snowfall. While the sightseeing was absolutely breathtaking, the deep snowfall presented problems for early risers like us.  Seeing as how Michigan doesn’t seem to
believe in using a certain abundant mineral to ensure safety for its drivers, the roads
were slick, and the drivers were slow. 

Even arriving twenty minutes late, we managed to skate for over an hour
and a half. Being experienced
players, Anthony (Gasparotto) and Dave (Devries) managed to land themselves on
the talented team, while I ended up losing ugly. Even so, good times were had by all as we played the game we
love before our buddies had even rolled out of bed.

After the skate we elected to refuel at the Rainbow Grill.  Three courses worth of drinks (water, OJ, and coffee), and blueberry flapjacks smothered in butter, honey, and maple syrup certainly did the job!  We left in food comas, all ready for our early afternoon siestas. Eating out also allowed us to avoid eating at Phelps Cafeteria for Saturday brunch, a notoriously difficult meal to stomach, thanks to the weekend-shortened staffing (that advice is directed to you, incoming freshmen).  Rainbow Grill completed a “Pure Michigan” morning for us.  Well worth the early morning wake up!

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Sunday

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The beginning of the week also signals the end of the
weekend. Fittingly, our RA Zach
began cleaning. One by one, we
joined the effort until all of Lampen’s residents present and Drew’s helpful girlfriend
Shannon were working collectively to tidy up the front room, vacuum the first
floor, mop the kitchen, wash the intimidating stacks of dishes, and clean the more public first floor
bathroom. Birthday boy Jamie Haak
escaped his duties: being at a lab was miserable enough, or so I would
imagine. No hard feelings
there. Our “maid,” Riley, was also
studying, but he has contributed plenty of effort in the past, hence his title. He was also forgiven.

The Super Bowl. Per tradition, the game was more hype than entertainment. Granted, I am apathetic (hadn’t seen a
game all season), but it didn’t turn into a ballgame until the second half,
when the ‘Niners crept back into the game. No need to elaborate. 

Granted, I did enjoy the Audi commercial.  If I have a kid someday, and if he goes
to prom alone, he’ll definitely be taking my whip (hopefully I’ll have an Audi by
that point). 

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*As long as he doesn’t drive concussed! 

Monday

A case of the Mondays is a weekly occurrence for normal
students such as ourselves. However, this Monday night proved to be unique, since it found the
majority of the boys hanging out together, NOT in bitter isolation doing
homework.

The doorbell sounded, and everyone’s index finger
immediately touched its respective nose. Busy
slugging home runs in Ken Griffey Major League Baseball on his precious Nintendo-64,
Christian was at a severe disadvantage, with both his hands grasping the
controller. Pausing the game, he sighed at the interruption, got up and walked to answer the door, out of our line of sight. 

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Shortly thereafter, he entered the room with a large
grin. He explained that it had not
been our next-door neighbors requesting their shovel back. Instead, it had been a beautiful stranger
who posed a blunt question to our unsuspecting hero.

“Can I kiss you?”

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A “Yeah, sure” elicited a brief smooch on the lips and a
rapid departure to a waiting vehicle.

Obviously, we all assumed he was joking, considering he had
been duped by us all weekend. But his
insistence provoked us to produce a Bible. With his right hand on the Bible, Christian attested to the
event once again, even going so far as to assign her an “8.”

It’s safe to say that Christian will be answering the front
door for the rest of the year.

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Until next week!

-Steven

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