Columbus, OH 1988 Xmas Week
Bryce was the first best friend I ever had. Church families were always hanging out at each others' houses doing churchy crap, but this particular occasion was special because it was Bryce's 6th birthday (I think? I'll have to ask him again because I can't recall). But anyways. We get to the door and Bryce answers, and immediately says "Hi!" I'm Bryce!"
Real friendly MidWestern hospitality shit. He leads me into the other room as our parents make nice and talk it up and do parenty churchy crap. He had just picked up a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3, and I was blown away. I had seen Nintendos in the other neighborhood kids' houses around my cul de sac, but nobody had SMBIII yet. He let me try it out, and i sucked a big one, died a buncha times, and so on and so forth. Then when another kid finally came along we switched to a Contra clone called "Jackal". It was basically Contra, but with Jeeps.
It was a friggin badass game.
Here look:
I do miss the synth-power metal soundtracks that were so prevalent in almost every NES game ever. I digress.
1989 - 1999
For 10 straight years, Bryce and his brother Ben were me and my brother Tim's best friends. We geeked out about video games, science fiction and Super Soaker® squirtguns. We hung out every Thanksgiving, almost every Xmas. Of course I was kind of a huge prick and going through a bunch of growing up shit, but through it all Bryce displayed a loyalty to me that was astonishing and inspiring at the same time. For all you fellow lifers out there who have friends from basically the beginning of time (just beyond the womb, let's say), you know what I am talking about.
I always did look up to him. He was smarter than me by at least a light year. He had this cunning wit that he dual wielded with his intelligence. He was really the one person who made it cool and hip to be smart. I wanted to be like him so bad, but I suppose all I could do was settle for scoring more goals on him at roller hockey than he did on me.
Friends came and went, but through it all Bryce and Ben was never more than a skip away from making new memories at camp, exploring new creeks and playing the latest Final Fantasy. We all eventually parted ways towards the end of high school, when he and his family packed up and moved to Taiwan. It was kind of a rough year of friendships for me, because my best friend at school, Roman, had just packed up and left for Santa Barbara earlier that year. By the time Bryce left, I think I had just been so bummed out on a consistent basis that the departure was a quiet one.
2002 - 2009
Bryce, after a short absence, began school at USC. It was still a rare occasion to hang out with him, but these all became far more meaningful as we were all figuring out how to fucking transition from adolescence to adulthood with mixed results. In '02, He called me up right before the start of summer and said "Hey dude! I'll be in San Jose at [an Animé convention called] Fanimé. It's kinda small and not as cool as the one here in SoCal but I've got a lot of peeps I wanna see. Come on by downtown I'll buy your ticket!"
And thus began our annual hangouts. Honestly, It felt like the Thanksgiving camps we used to go to all over again, only this time with hot babes dressed as hot dudes, vice versa and halfway in between. Lots of animal ears, fiberglass pistols and fishnets, if I may. The free hugs were nice.
Our friendship really became its own perpetual living legend. My friendship with Bryce was a brilliant one and still is, in all of its stripped down simplicities. No bullshit, no communication issues, a mutual understanding that we are always there for each other even in limited capacities across the globe. He made it relevant and possible for me not only to grow friendships, but for me to maintain them with resilience and longevity as well. It really is a remarkable feat.
2010 -
Bryce hasnt really had the time to go to Fanimé any longer. I myself stopped going a few years back too. But he's still there in the rafters, out in Asia, rooting for me as always. Even though our communication is limited and even though we don't pal around for hours on end every single day and play video games until we can't see anymore, the friendship lessons he has taught me are forever tattooed in me and have served as a blueprint for resiliency for all of the friendships and connections that I have nowadays.