The Bug Light Boys: How It All Began

I never went to Bug Light searching for friendship.

I went there trying to get closer to college.

I was taking classes online because anxiety had kept me out of the classroom. I just wanted to be near Southern Maine Community College, build small steps. Maybe walk around campus, maybe eventually go inside and use the bathroom, maybe visit the library.

Little things, but little things felt big.

Bug Light was nearby, so I started going there to study and practice being closer. There was a public spot near the lighthouse with people around, but I wasn’t comfortable with that, just a quieter little grassy area with chairs felt safer.

Nobody was there, until one morning Charlie parked, walked toward me, and everything in me wanted to run.

He didn’t press, he smiled, waved, and invited me to stay.

I still don’t know how I stayed.

But his kindness was disarming, no expectations, no judgment and somewhere in that anxious noise, a tiny voice said, why not?

So I stayed.

Over time, I went back. Sometimes I’d drive past hoping no one would wave because waving meant I’d have to stop. But they made it clear I belonged. It wasn’t their place, they said. It was everybody’s place.

One afternoon stretched long, and I realized my guard had dropped. My mind slowed. I wasn’t analyzing every face or word.

I felt strangely safe.

Driving home later, the anxiety came back like a wave building offshore, walls rising again, but now I knew there was a place where it could get quieter.

That place, those men, they changed my life.

Charlie became an extremely close friend. After he passed, I still say hello when I pass where he’s buried. I bring my dogs, we sit with him and his wife.

The dogs always seem to know it’s a special place. Maybe they sense the calm, maybe the sadness.

Their spirit has lived on in me.

That’s why I created The Bug Light Boys.

Most people never knew these men or their humor, their kindness, their stories. I wanted to keep a little of that alive, not by copying their lives, but by creating characters who carry some of their warmth, their laughter, their acceptance.

I can’t bring those days or friends back, but I can share a little of what they gave me.

Once, when I was just trying to get close to campus, Charlie waved and invited me to stay.

I didn’t know it then, but that simple wave led me to a place where I belonged.