My Story/college

My Story - Alex Griep

Alex Griep - Bus Core Leader
U of M - Morris

I have so many STLF memories but the one I remember the best would have to be the time when we were cleaning up an area around a small river. Up to that day, my PIF trip wasn’t going very well. I didn’t feel as if I was one of the group. I would take projects that would allow me to work alone. And I wasn’t having much fun. And this service project wasn’t going any different. But this project also changed the whole trip for me.

I started out the day with picking up sticks. I was going off on my own doing my thing and I filled up a garbage bag filled with them. So I went to put them in the dumpster along with larger branches I had collected. In doing so I was brought to near the river where people were fishing stuff out like refrigerator doors and tires. Well there was a stubborn refrigerator door that the group couldn’t get out because they get a good grip from its position in the water. Imagine for a moment: five college students perched on a not-so-stable branch spanning the water trying to wrangle a forty pound refrigerator door four feet away from said branch. Needless to say it wasn’t going swimmingly.

So they asked from some help from the kid that had the longest arms, which was me. I actually got it almost up the sheer mud bank when I lost my footing and my grip, sending the door tumbling back into the water. I promised I would get it again but I fell in the river. It wasn’t too bad but if you will remember, we were doing this on a quite precarious branch. And I was the lucky guy it broken for. So I told myself “Screw it. I’m already wet and I dropped it back into the river. I’ll just wade through and get it.” So I did and it was cold.

I clambered to the other bank where people had found a way across and were attacking the river from that side. I helped on that side for awhile drying only slightly. We saw some trash at a hard to reach place down a sheer bank of pretty solid mud. And what I mean is it was all mud and in not way solid ground. I volunteered to go down because it was clear that who ever went down wouldn’t be getting up. And being wet and the tallest person on tour, I got the trash and waded across the river.

I stand around 6’ 4”. I’m not small fry in that regard. This “small river” was quite deceiving. In the middle of the river the deepest it got was my mid-chest region. And freezing. It took me a while to get to that point in the river. The lady in charge of our service project watched me for awhile and informed me that I should probably get out as it was a distinct possibly that I might catch hypothermia. I was inclined to agree as it wasn’t the warmest of spring days. So I waded out and got on warm clothes, shivering uncontrollably the entire time.

So the reason this project changed the course of my trip. So for me, these trips are all about the bonding we get to do while we serve others. And as I wasn’t feeling a part of the group, I wasn’t having a good time. This was the first day that I felt included in the group. Everyone for the rest of the day was talking about the crazy guy that tempted the gods of hypothermia just to get a couple pieces of trash.

From there on the trip, I got sat down by seven different girls, having a discussion about the mind of the female (we concluded that they make no sense), I got yelled at by a gigantic bouncer at a Coyote Ugly for taking a video of some of my fellow STLFers with their cameras that they asked for, and I met all three of my lovely Bus Core members and I cannot be happier being one of the them.

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