Whatever Happened To ...

Lately, I don't know why, perhaps it's "old age", but I've been wondering what on earth happened to people I've come across in my lifetime. I've been lucky in that a lot of my old friends are connected to the internet, so I keep in touch as much as possible. Still, there are those who seem to have just disappeared ...

Like, whatever happened to my second "proper" boyfriend, Darren Hodge? We used to work together at a fast food place called Del Taco in my hometown of Garland, Texas, during the summer of 1984, just before my senior year. That was back in the days when I went by my middle name, so I was "Kaye Rice" then. We started going steady soon after I started working there (though I actually had a crush on another guy who worked with us, Leonard Ashton), and we broke up before school started again in August.

I can remember how, compared to the guys I knew at North Garland High School, Darren was a "bad boy" by my parents' standards. He had dropped out of high school, and he smoked. Definitely not what my parents had in mind, but they never told me I couldn't see him. Reverse psychology, I suppose. Forbid her to see him and she'll work twice as hard to make sure she does!

One memory I have of him is when he and a friend showed up really late at night, after my parents had gone to bed, and I met him round the side of the house where there was no screen on the bathroom window. I guess I could have sneaked out and probably would have gotten away with it, but instead I leaned out the window, with my knees on the toilet, so we could make out.

But we broke up eventually, probably because I wasn't ready to lose my virginity just yet. It does make me wonder where I would be today if I had slept with him! I probably wouldn't have married my first husband -- he had a thing about "used" women, but that's another story.