Day 49 - Don the Counselor

At 15 years old, I went with my church group to a convention of young Lutherans in Detroit, Michigan. We were called Luther Leaguers, although I haven’t heard that term used for a long time. We stayed at a hotel, wore Robin Hood-style felt hats, with the color of hat and feather marking members of the same church, and rode between the hotel and Cobo Hall in buses.

Because our hats identified our home church, it wasn’t surprising when a college student introduced himself as also being from our church, although he wasn't with our group. He was at the convention as chaperone with a different Moorhead church but he was a member of my church. His name was Don.

The convention lasted a week, so we ran into Don often.

The following summer, I went to Leadership Camp, sponsored by my church. One of the counselors there was Don. Because we had met the previous summer, Don and I talked about the Detroit convention and what we did while there. I remember Don saying it took him a couple of months to catch up on all the sleep he lost there. When he learned that I was studying German he asked me if I would be his “Du” friend. It took me awhile to understand what he meant – I heard “do” friend which didn’t make any sense.  He explained he was referring to the familiar form of the German pronoun for “you,” and that it was so special to ask someone to be a “Du” friend that there was a verb for it, “dutzen.” With that background, I told him I would be very pleased to be his “Du” friend.

Now that’s the end of the story of Don the Counselor, but years later I thought about him when I heard stories of how children were misled by adults in positions of trust. And I realized how easily I could have been misled by Don the Counselor. He was someone I trusted. I met him at a church convention. He was a counselor at a church camp. And he gave me attention, something I wasn’t used to.

To be absolutely clear – there was nothing more to the story of Don the Counselor than in the above paragraphs. I admit I had a teenage crush on him. And that is why I could easily imagine being misled by him. I could easily imagine how I could be convinced that attention from him would be acceptable.

And that made me wonder what signs I would have given to my parents that something inappropriate was happening.  I think that in the bottom of my heart I would have known when attention was inappropriate.  And I know I was never any good at trying to hide anything from parents, teachers clergymen, or Campfire Girl leaders.  So I am fairly confident that any inappropriate attention would have not lasted long.

But I’ll never know for sure.