Here's the thing about the Mikey photo.
Apparently his last job of any note was as a counsellor at Kandelore. That's a reasonably respectable canoe camp, i.e., older kids go out on 21-day trips with not a lot besides what they can carry. The old adage is 'Go in soft, come out a nail'. When I was doing that shit, Kandalore had the rep of being a little lux, but still they travelled.
You'd be up in Temagami doing some loop and, damn, there they were: The Kandalore kids going for the prime real estate you were gunning for. So you'd have to race for it, paddling hard to stake your place. Winner take all. And, if you got their first, you'd take your prize. You got lean. A little mean. And while this happened infrequently, it occurred enough that it's memory-etched. But after one of those trips, and later ones at Wanipitei where you'd go further, there wasn't a single kid who didn't drop at least 8 kg., gain a new physique and an entirely new perspective.
Maybe Mike stayed at base with the younger kids, but to be a counsellor there you surely had to go hard at least once or twice. And that would stay with you. Muscle memory and all. So that photo makes me sad. He's a kid who, while having great advantage, has also encountered unspeakable tragedy. And he is about to possibly step into, or be annointed to, a role of civic responsibility for which he's wholly unqualified, unprepared and unsuitable. He's a good candidate for gout, though.
TL/DR: He'll never be a nail, is all.
