High school sweethearts reconnect after 73 years

NORTH MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — Cell phones and social media have made it much easier to stay connected, but that wasn’t always the case. Bill Hassinger, 90, and 92-year-old Joanne Blakkan know this firsthand.

Both grew up in Muskegon and met on the school bus in the 1940s. The two will joke about who made the first move.

“She got picked up on the bus first and I’d find her on the bus, so I guess that was me,” Hassinger chuckled.

He’ll also tell you that dating an older woman has its perks.

Of course, it was much more than that, which is why it was so difficult when Blakkan graduated two years before Hassinger.

“I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license, so I didn’t have a car. That’s what attracted me to her… she had a car.”

“That and I was a majorette in high school I think he was attracted to that,” Blakkan laughed.

“He took me to my senior prom, then I went off to Michigan State, and he was still back in high school, so we kind of each went our separate ways from then on,” she explained.

After high school, Hassinger got married and three months later was drafted to serve in the Korean War. After a couple of years in the army, he joined the Michigan State Police, eventually becoming a Lieutenant Colonel. He had three children, two of whom have since passed.

Blakkan was also married and had three children. She spent most of her life working in the medical field. Her children are all involved in the same field.

For 73 years, their paths never crossed until the fall of 2022.

“(My daughter) Linda was helping me do some research on the computer looking for my former classmates that I’ve lost track of and I came across Bill’s name there and I researched a little bit further and saw that his wife had passed away the year before,” Blakkan said.

She also realized he was living about 80 miles north in Manistee.

“I dropped him a note and said it would be fun to reminisce.”

“I forgot who she was!” Hassinger teased. “No, that’s not true. I was surprised and I hadn’t thought of her or been around her you know, all this time since high school and I thought well that’s interesting, I’ll get together, so I called her and told her I’d be down.”

Hassinger got COVID, so Blakkan didn’t hear from him for three or four weeks. She thought, “Oh well, I guess he changed his mind.”

Finally, he called and they set a date to get together. On Sept. 6, 2022, Hassinger made the drive to North Muskegon for lunch.

“Neither one of us look the same after several years. I wouldn’t have picked her out of a crowd and probably the same her for me but once we got over that little bit of a shock, the personalities and the way we feel about each other just came right back,” he recalled.

“We just really went back to where we were in high school as far as feelings go,” Blakkan said.

The two now spend every weekend together.

“We play a lot of cards — cribbage, gin, and we work puzzles. We walk every other day, and she does her exercises, and we go out to dinner maybe once a week, and the rest of the time, just enjoy each other’s company,” Hassinger said.

They also attend events with the MSP retirement group.

“I like taking her to my old buddies and showing her off and I just like being with her and I am proud of my service with the state police. It’s like a second family to me… always has been. Once a trooper, always a trooper, I guess. But she’s well received and she tolerates that.”

The couple is looking into different options to be together full-time, including living in Blakkan’s home in North Muskegon or a new senior complex in downtown Muskegon.

“We want to be together, we just don’t know when,” said Blakkan.

For now, they plan to do everything they can to make up for lost time, with however much time they have left.

“We realize at our age we don’t know how much time we have ahead of us. I mean it could be a few years yet, maybe tomorrow. How do any of us know? But in the meantime, we’re having a good time,” said Blakkan.

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