The summer we moved to Bradenton, Florida, from Michigan City, Indiana, at the end of my sophomore year of high school was one of solitude. I spent it mostly riding my ten-speed around our neighborhood and then in ever-expanding explorations into neighborhoods further afield until I understood pretty well the geography of my new town.
On one occasion, I decided to go all the way out to the island, which included crossing the bridge that linked it to the mainland. Anna Maria Island was seven miles west–an ambitious undertaking to ride a bike out and back–but I had nothing better to do with my time. With no friends, and only my parents and a ten-year-old sibling at home, escape was all I had on my mind. I was not happy to be so unceremoniously and unsympathetically removed from the people I had gone to school with since Kindergarten. Try as I might to remain a loner, however, the effort was a failure. Inevitably, I met a few people before the start of school and started to make new connections.
The day before we were to begin our junior year, Cindy, one of the girls I had met, called to suggest I meet her at her bus so that she could then introduce me to her core group of friends. I wasn’t a shy kid, but when you’re new, it’s hard to feel confident. Her offer was a great relief to me.
I lived close enough to walk, so I left home early in order to be waiting at the front of the school as the buses arrived. The first bus pulled up to the curb and one kid after another stepped off and headed in their various different directions. No sign of Cindy on the first bus. The same thing happened with the second bus. When the third bus arrived, I heard a fellow student say, “The island bus is here.” I knew Cindy did not live on the island, but I was enjoying taking in all the new faces of my fellow schoolmates.
As I watched the students step off onto the curb, I made eye contact with a girl I was certain I had seen before. Behind her, a boy stepped off the bus whose face also was familiar. It was a strange moment–one that felt surreal. The girl and the boy came to a dead stop in front of me as the three of us just stared at one another. Finally, the girl said, “Debbie?” I swallowed hard as my brain tried to make sense of these two people. I knew I was at my new school in Bradenton, but these two people were from my old school in Michigan City. After looking rather stupidly at them both I said, “Gayle? Bruce?” Yes, incredibly, here were two people from what seemed to be a past life now linked to my present life.
As Gayle, Bruce, and I continued to marvel at one another, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Cindy. I explained to her what had just happened. We all started to laugh over the utter absurdity of it, and then I arranged to meet Gayle and Bruce at lunchtime.
At lunch, I found out that Gayle’s father worked for Bruce’s father, and that Bruce’s father had opened a second location of his construction company, Woodruff & Sons, in Bradenton. Soon afterwards, I began to see Woodruff & Sons trucks everywhere. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them during all my bicycle outings.
Gayle and Bruce were not close friends of mine, but when you’re the new kids, and you share a history, it’s pretty cool to find one another and form a much-needed bridge.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2023
