Mare definitely had some lungs. That woman was the only person at RMA who could scream and yell louder than Caroline Wolfe.
I mainly remember her raps. She might have known a lot about the Wilderness, but when I was at RMA, she never did any of the expeditions with us, except the Ishi. And that took place mainly on campus anyway and was a really weird experience. But her raps were loud, and she had so little insight of others. Aside from making the usual RMA speeches and using the usual RMA phrases, she was probably one of the dumbest people I had met. Everything that came out of her mouth, unless it was her area of expertise like Wilderness or nursing, was always wrong.
Dan was generally cool, but he also liked to yell. I can't say his Wilderness skills were top notch though. On our Final Voyage and our Final Quest, he got lost and couldn't find his way out without help. He might have known a lot about nature in general, but his map skills made me laugh. I remember he couldn't find RMA even though we were on Katka and within a handful of miles...and could see the campus. See it!
It was terribly sad when Mare gave birth to Luka and he was just big enough to fit in the palm of a hand. So small and fragile. I am glad to hear he is 21 now and made it. Back then we feared every day he wasn't going to last much longer.
RMA changed people and Dan and Mare were not immune. While I was there I could see the good side of them. Dan was friendly and enjoyable when he wasn't playing staff member. Mare jumped in a bit deeper and much sooner and had Kool-aid breath from gargling the psychobabble too much. Two other staff who were there during my time, Brett and Lisa Carey were much the same. All four of these people seemed to have arrived with good intentions. I think they all really wanted to help kids. But the system was designed to break people. And they all broke. Which is sad.
I think in many ways, we can regret what happened to them as much as regretting what happened to us because of CEDU and RMA. We didn't want to be there, they did. We got to leave, wanted to leave and were able to survive by leaving. They stayed, their goodness was broken and eaten away by a system designed to do that, and they stayed...becoming part of the system. CEDU was like the Borg. Resistance was futile.
Sorry to hear Dan passed away. All my love to Mare and her children.
