I first met Ben in the spring or the summer after my first year teaching. We were still living in our first apartment. He was the new security guard in our guard shack of our gated community. I was still pretty new there and since he was new, I stopped my car to introduce myself and Sean and tell him where we lived.
I remember one evening, Sean and I went to get Slurpee‘s and it was a really warm night. I offered to bring him back one when we came back home. That was when Ben and I became friends. He is slightly younger than me and he worked there for a number of years. We were living in our second apartment when he left. He came by to see our house when we first moved in and he doesn’t even live in Michigan anymore but we text.
It wasn’t until after I saw the movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days that I started calling him, “Benny-Bear.” I don’t know that I have called him that to his face but he is saved in my phone as, “Benny” so I probably did! Well, last night I put Gavin DeGraw on shuffle and I heard this song:
It made me think of Benny and our first apartment. More Gavin DeGraw songs played and I thought vividly about cleaning the kitchen or the fridge and doing laundry when Sean slept. This morning, I still was thinking about those times and I texted Ben this picture:
I told him that I was thinking of him yesterday and in our texting conversation, realized that I have known him for some 15 years now. That’s kind of crazy!