A Flash to the Past

In the year 1968, I left home and moved back to Ohio, my home state.   It was the beginning of a grand adventure for me. I graduated from high school two years before and I had no plans for college or marriage, I just wanted to be free.

So off to Ohio, I went. I moved to a section of town called Mount Adams and there the fun began because it was the Cincinnati version of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Nope, I wasn’t a hippie, I wasn’t into drugs but, I was into boys, and I dated a lot of boys. Some, most, I have no memory of at all. They came and went, like water down a stream. But some remained very memorable for me.

Many years later, I met and married my husband and settled down to the common life of married people... but recently, it’s been interesting to run into some of those old boy friends.

The first one happened at the YMCA where I go for exercise class. The Y had recently began offering pickleball, and I decided to try it out. It was a very communal activity in that people introduced themselves to each other very quickly and started having a lot of fun.

One day after about two weeks of going to pickleball, a new gentleman showed up. As usual, what we all did was walk up to him at some point and introduced ourselves. So, like the rest, I walked up to this gentleman about my age, held out my hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Sue.’ He responded by saying, ‘Hey, I’m Rock!’ And in that instant, I recognized him.  I immediately froze. Rock Rockenfield was one of those memorable boyfriends. He and I dated for probably close to a year and we had a great time together. All kinds of fun. We broke up when he started dating a couple of other girls that I knew, and I went, ‘ehh, that's the end of that.’ Hadn’t seen him in close to 40 years.

My response to his introduction startled him and all I had to say was, “Hallsted” and then he froze. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and then I reached up and grabbed him and gave him a huge hug. And we laughed. He’s married, divorced, remarried. Had a set of twin boys, grandchildren, retired, you know, all the usual stuff.

I didn’t hang out in pickleball for very long. Decided it wasn’t for me. So, I haven’t seen Rock since, but it was a nice flashback to a great memory.

Then several weeks later, I was going to an art show with a friend. I knew that another old boyfriend would be there. The artist was his sister and I had stayed in touch with both of his sisters over the years. Jerry and I had gone together for over 10 years. First five years were dating casually, off and on, off and on, off and on, second five years is when I moved to Guam to be with him. I spent ten months there, and then another five years back in Cincinnati. We finally broke up when I no longer wanted to deal with his drinking. I see him occasionally, but not often. He is now married, and his wife is very jealous of any woman from his past.

So, the recent encounter at this art show was me and my friend, wandering around looking at the art. And as soon as I entered the room, I saw Jerry and his wife. He didn’t make eye contact with me, and I went, OK, but at some point, when his wife was involved elsewhere, I walked up to him, put my arm around his shoulder and looked at him face to face. I could tell instantly that he had no clue who I was. After a couple of seconds, I said to him, do you know who you’re looking at? He shook his head and said, ‘No’ I said, Sue Hallsted. He looked at me, and then he looked me up and down, like he was looking at some kind of critter he was going to buy. We talked for a couple minutes, but his wife came back over and while she was social, she was not warmly friendly so, I made my excuses and wandered off.

After I was home again, I reminisced in my head about Jerry and Rock.  Jerry in particular in that at one time we were engaged to be married.  The two of them were a huge part of those many years when I was young and single.  I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.  They were fabulous and created the woman that I am today. 

Thanks guys, for warmly, cherished memories.