Best friends, for at least one summer
Sam and Charlie are best friends. Both are 9, but Charlie’s a month older and maybe a bit more mature. Sam has braces on his teeth and a baseball cap turned backward. Charlie’s a half-foot taller. They are blond and skinny and kinetic in that way some 9-year-old boys are blond and skinny and kinetic. When talking to them, you look down and see four bare feet digging around in the sand.
Sam and Charlie have known each other for only two days. But here, on the beach in Wildwood, N.J., they’ve become best friends.
The boys are competing in the National Marbles Tournament, which is held this week every year in Wildwood. Sam and six other children from the Pittsburgh area came to compete against a few dozen others from all over the country. Charlie and his group traveled the most miles.
I met them while filming a documentary for WQED. The half-hour film will air in the fall; part of it will follow the tournament here on the beach.
That’s what led me to Sam, who’s especially noticeable in the marbles ring. Where other players (especially the older ones) are straight-faced and focused, Sam bounces around as if the ring were a trampoline, flapping his arms, spinning and stepping off the board to kick a little sand. While most other players rarely make eye contact with – much less speak – to their opponents, Sam takes a more convivial approach, offering encouragement and a postgame handshake that’s at least a 30-second grasp; he never lets go first, even when he’s lost the round.
That is how Sam met his new best friend. Early in the competition, Sam and Charlie met in the marbles ring. Our camera was rolling when Sam introduced us.
“This is Charlie,” he said. “He’s from Colorado and he’s my best friend.”
Charlie talked about where on the map Colorado is, and then turned to Sam to offer some advice about his marbles game.
“You should stop and take a breath and rest before you shoot,” he said, referencing Sam’s tendency to rush things.
I asked the boys how they plan to stay in touch across all those miles. Both boys reached into their pockets.
“We found special treasures to give each other for memories,” said Sam. He showed me a tiny, green plastic soldier. Charlie held up a 2016 nickel.
“I’ll keep mine by my bed, to remember my friend,” said Sam, “until I see him next year.”
“But we’ll look different then,” said Charlie.
Maybe by then, Sam will have his braces off and maybe he will have grown a bit to catch up with Charlie. Maybe they’ll spend the year practicing marbles and they’ll make it to the semifinals. For now, they say they plan to come back every year, so they can keep on being best friends.
Their moms tell us the boys want to be pen pals, not by texting notes and photos but by writing actual letters. What a charming, analog, no-technology way to connect – just like the game of marbles itself.
Perhaps Sam and Charlie will remain best friends. Or maybe, like many summer friendships, this one won’t follow the boys much beyond the edge of the Wildwood beach and will fade with the summer. But so what.
Haven’t we all had one of those? A summer friendship dusted with sand and bathed in sunshine. It may be short and fleeting, but while it lasts, it is everything.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.