How do we meet new friends?

I have a friend I met at the beach, sounds odd to even say it. I go to the beach a lot to watch the sun come up and reflect on my life and have noticed others who come out a lot. After some time I felt I got to know some of them, vicariously, a nod one day, a good morning some other day and always a wave. You know how you feel about folks you see a lot but do not really know that well, kinda like the butcher at the grocery store or the server at the restaurant you frequent or the lady who sells you your coffee in the morning on the way to work. You know them, kind of, superficially, and you feel some connection to them even though you really know nothing of their lives outside the narrow confines of your relationship with them. Weird huh? Anyway, I try to develop those kinds of relationships because there are no expectations that a friendship will develop. Without those expectations it seems easier to kindle a friendship, it is unlike a coworker that you feel you are obligated to befriend. Or friends of your spouse or friends of friends, there seems to me to be an added level of pressure to make a friendship work, which usually sours the attempt which inevitably sabotages the entire effort. Now not every one of those types of relationships fail but there is that initial pressure to make the friendship succeed.

I have seen my new friend for a long time, he comes early and gets going on a vigorous walk up and down the beach, he is usually gone for close to an hour and half. He comes on the beach in the same location I do and he comes every day. After that vigorous walk he leaves the beach and gets his chair and the cooler, a drink and a snack, and makes his way back down to the beach to watch the rest of the sunrise and enjoy the sheer beauty of the process. I am not sure how long I have been watching him out there but the one thing I noticed about him was his tenacity, he is there every day for his walk. We waved and even said good morning for a while and I was amazed at what great shape he was in for being in what I would later find out was his mid 60’s. He appeared to be in great shape for a man my age let alone in his 60’s. I can’t remember the day or even the reason we started talking, it could have been the day of the crime scene that sullied our individual morning routines, but we introduced ourselves and started talking each time we met. I learned his first name and that he lived close by. Over time our relationship has grown into something I really like. I actually look forward to seeing him when I go out to the beach.

So not long ago we were talking, the day Bride and I were out watching the sunrise on our anniversary and he indicated that his birthday was Friday. I thought wouldn’t it be cool to come on down on Friday and talk some pictures and create the time lapse sunrise and give them to him on CD. So that is what I did, my camera is set up to take a picture automatically every thirty seconds so I wind up with anywhere from 125 to 200 shots and then just string them into a video using the windows movie maker program. Well while I was talking to him on his birthday another friend of his road by on her bicycle and gave him a nice birthday card with some pictures she had taken on the front and the inside. After leaving I downloaded the pictures to the computer and made the time lapse and then scoured through the 176 pictures and found a few of the best ones and one of my favorites from a couple of years ago and threw them on a thumb drive.

Off to CVS for some prints I went, the kind woman helped me get the photos picked and onto their machine for printing, I believe there were 8 of them. After I got my thumb drive back I asked, how much are those going to cost? I was not sure with eight of the 8x10 size what that would cost, she tells me 7.99 each. HOLY COW I thought I had seen them advertised cheaper than that at Walgreens I say to her. Her response was amusing to me, and I am not sure why she acted like this. She looks around, like a drug dealer might before producing the dope for the user, I in turn silently perform the same movements, crane my head from the far right side all the way around to the far left, I even bobbed my head up to look over the shelving units, it was funny. Then she moves closer to me and says ya know what, to which I respond, no what? She goes on to tell me she can give me those pictures for 3 bucks a piece, wow I thought but asked her if that was all she could do because I had seen them even cheaper than that at the Sam’s Club. She again performs the bizarre ritual of looking around and then tells me she has a buy one get on free coupon behind the counter she can give to me. A BOGO on the prints, wow I thought – I had to get them done and for 1.49 each I felt I had received a bargain.

So I put all the pictures from that days shoot as well as a bunch of the time lapse sunrises on a CD. I placed what I thought was the best of the 8x10’s in a frame I picked up at CVS and put them in the jalopy ready for when I made my next trip out to the beach. On my next visit to the beach, I gave my friend his belated birthday gift, he enjoyed the pictures and told me how much he appreciated the gesture. That was the moment that our friendship changed into something more than it was previously. I still do not even know his last name, or telephone number but I feel like we are best of friends and if he needed something and I could, I would help him out. So I am still just amazed that way in which friendships can develop, if we let them. How many people have you befriended in such an odd way. Since that time I have learned a lot about my friend, where he is from, what he did and still does for a living and about his family and why he comes out every day to the beach. I have, in turn told him about some of the things about my life.

I still, and hope I always am able to, just cherish the moments that take me by surprise, I mean when it comes to making friends at the beach, in the dark no less – whodathunkit! We have only ever met at the beach, when I go I know I will see him there and he knows he will see me, if not that day, soon.