Although I was starting to become disillusioned with religion, I still was going to church, actually more than ever, but more for the social aspect of it.  Our family had been going to Westside Baptist Church that was just a few blocks down the road from our house for several years. Sunday morning, I would go with my family to Sunday School and then the church service, but I also started going on Sunday evening to the youth service and occasional to the Wednesday night prayer meeting service as they called it.  I made several good friends at church, there was John and his younger brother Greg. John was my age and went to GHS although I seldom saw him at school.  There were two girls Anne and Terry who were best friends and a year younger than me. My sister Brenda was there, along with several others but then there was Bill.  Not Bill my best friend, a new Bill.  New Bill had graduated from GHS two years prior after which  his father, who had worked at the University of Florida, took a job at the new University of North Florida in Jacksonville. When his parents moved to Jacksonville, Bill didn’t want to leave Gainesville, so he stayed in Gainesville getting an apartment and a job at a car parts store.

It was a good group of kids, we often did things together as a group, often after the Sunday  night Youth Service, other times on the weekend, going out for pizza, bowling, or to see a movie, and a couple times to the beach on a Saturday.  After a few months I found myself attracted to Anne. While her friend Terry was funny and a bit crazy, Anne seemed more mature and thoughtful which I liked.  Since Anne was younger, she couldn’t drive yet so I would often give her a ride in my Camaro to church events and at the event we would sit together.  It was unofficially known among the group that Larry and Anne were “together” although we never went on an actual date in which I asked her out.  Yeah, like what was my problem, I could tell she liked me, our at least I thought so, but then again, she might not, no, best not to ask her out and embarrass me and her both, anyway, she would tell me if she had feelings for me, right?

Updated: 11-10-2022

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