JENNY MALLEY

Ah, Jenny, what can you say? In my opinion (no doubt shared by others) Jenny was far and away the most beautiful girl I went to school with. The cool thing about her is that she had the personality to match.

I first got to know Jenny when we were in 7th grade. She and I shared every single class together. We also had our lockers next to each other. Lucky me! I was put in between her and B.J. Lutterman. It was supposed to be alphabetical. But my mom had spoken to the vice principal, Mr. Slattery at our middle school. She didn't want me next to Doug Wall. So they obliged and moved me.

Jenny was the nicest girl. And she had the cutest giggle. Aside from the obvious physical attraction, what I respected about her most of all was the way she treated people. Jenny was without a doubt part of the the "in crowd." But unlike many of her peers, she did not put down or look down upon those who were socially beneath her. She had to look way down to see me. But she was always kind and friendly to me.

In Mr. Stodola's 7th grade science class, we were watching a film strip one day. We all turned our desks to face the screen. I ended up desk-to-desk with Jenny. Oh, lucky me! For reasons unbeknownst to me, Kevin Dehne and I began to crumple up paper, and whip it at the chalkboard. After several minutes, we'd made quite a mess. Apparently Jenny noticed that Mr. Stodola was coming. So she warned me of his potential presence. Unlucky for her, Stodola heard her. So he stopped the film strip, turned on the lights, and ripped into Kevin and I. Then he turned his attention towards Jenny, scolding her even harder for trying to protect me from harm. If memory serves, he made the three of us clean up the mess.

Jenny must have been on Clarke's basketball team. One day she came to school with a broken finger. She had apparently broken it in a game the night before. She mentioned that the girl who broke it (accidentally) didn't even get called for a foul. Our math teacher, Mr. Longhini joked, "She hit you in the nose, and broke your finger."

One day Doug Wall came by my locker. Jenny and I had been talking about how cool we thought Slade's song "Run, Runaway" was. Doug misunderstood us and thought we were talking about Bon Jovi's song "Runaway." We both laughed at Doug.

Jenny sat next to me in Mr. Monka's history class in 8th grade. I seem to recall her mentioning to me one day that during the previous weekend, she had gone rollerskating. I think it was in Manitowoc at the Rollaire Skate Center. Anyway, whenever they used to play Taco's song, "Puttin' On The Ritz" the guys would change the lyrics and say "Grabbing girls' tits." And then they would go around grabbing the boobs of the females in attendance. I asked Jenny is she herself was groped. And she said yes. She also said that place decided that they would no longer play that song anymore.

Near the very end of 8th grade, Jenny had a major hairstyle change. She went from straight and spikey to short and curly. Wow! I didn't like it. It really altered her appearance. Apparently she didn't like it either. Needless to say, a few months later, at the beginning of our freshman year, she had changed it back.

During our junior year, I wanted to find a copy of the song "Pop Muzik." My friend Jason Krings said he'd find it for me. He did. He borrowed the '45 from Jenny. During our senior year, I told Jenny that I still had her record. She told me to keep it. I still have it. If you want to see the actual record, just look down. Back in 1979, someone in the Malley household purchased this.



In high school, she dated a guy named Kevin Keip and Jack Jansky (who I don't think ever smiled). Lucky guys. In our senior year, the school was abuzz with a rumor that Jenny was secretly dating one of the new teachers, Mr. Kakuk. I thought the rumors were ridiculous. Still do.

I ran into Jenny a few times at the video store. The last time I saw her was around 1993 or so. She rented "For The Boys." I haven't heard from her since. Although a few years later, Dave and I went skydiving together with her older brother Steve.

I believe that Jenny got married and became Jennifer Quigle. Unfortunately, she divorced. I think she moved to southern California.

Jenny was the full package. She had beauty, brains, personality and a great body. Wherever she is today, I'm sure nothing has changed.

Update - 1/31/06 - Jenny has dropped in. I've E-mailed her a couple of times. She did in fact move to San Diego, but has since moved north to Santa Cruz. She's also remarried, and now is known as Jennifer Bertram. Bertram... that name has a nice ring to it. She is now into buddhism, and is studying Chinese medicine. Both she and her husband are graduating in June. Then they plan to move back to Madison and open up their own business. Power to them! She has no children as of yet. But there may be some in the future. Jen sent me two pictures from her 2004 wedding. They're posted below. The hair is darker. There are eight more tattoos than the last time I saw her. And she's still as cute as ever. Thanks for stopping by Jen!




UPDATE - 4/10/06 - As mentioned by Joe Antonie in Jenny's comments, she was into breakdancing. Thanks to Cindy Rohrer for providing a glimpse of Jenny from those days. Does this scream 80's or what? I love it!



UPDATE - 5/18/06 - I think this photo came from Cindy Rohrer as well. She must have hundreds of them. This is apparently from 4th grade.



UPDATE - 8/15/06 - I've got perhaps the newest picture of Jenny. It was taken just a few days ago, while on a date with her husband. You can see it below.



UPDATE - 8/28/06 - UPDATE - 8/28/06 - Jenny and her husband were visited yesterday by fellow graduate Greg Pagel and his wife. The four of them hung out all day, and listened to some live blues music in a park. The two pictures are below.





UPDATE - 11/10/06 - Adding to her record number of updates, here's Jen, along with Lisa King, on our senior video.



UPDATE - 3/2/07 - Yesterday Jen and I actually got together for lunch. We work about seven minutes apart from each other. So I drove down to see her. We ate at a restaurant located in the same building she works in.

What a delight. I was a bit nervous to see her. After all, here was the girl that I had a huge crush on for most of my childhood. But the nervousness was unfounded. It was so cool to sit and gab with her for an hour, friend to friend. My fish sandwich was tasty too. When we were done, she gave me a tour of her work place.

Jen is as sweet as ever. We've tentatively planned to have lunch together every other week or so. I'm looking forward to it. Life is so cool sometimes.

As a side note, four hours after I left Jen, my wife stopped by to get an acupuncture treatment from her. I might just do that myself sometime.

UPDATE - 3/23/07 - I had lunch again today with the former Miss Malley. Her husband joined us as well - nice guy. Jen had a couple of interesting stories about a few of our former classmates. But... I will refrain from writing about them, despite the fact that they were funny as hell. I basically have one rule when it comes to this blog. When someone tells me something a bit "risque" about a classmate, I don't write about it. It'd kind of be like a betrayal of trust. Now if those people choose to make the comments themselves, that's great. I could make a whole other blog about some of the stuff I've been told in the past 14 months. But I won't. But I could! But alas, I won't. I'm just saying I could though. But I won't.

UPDATE - 10/4/07 - Wow, has it been that long since I've done an update on Jen? I guess so. Anyway, my wife has been a frequent customer of Jenny's acupuncture treatments. She plans to start up again with her soon. Jenny and I have had lunch two or three times. I think we're do for another one soon. I also have this new picture of her. If memory serves, it was snapped back in early September. Keep smiling Jen! Oh, and happy birthday!



UPDATE - 5/31/08 - I received an Email from Brandon Podhola today. He ran into Jenny earlier today. She's training for a half marathon. Here's the Email he sent me.


Burt

I haven't seen much action on the blog lately but I wanted to drop you a note about someone that I ran into today.

My wife, son and I take an annual hike through Point Beach State Forest and then stop for a pizza at Port Sandy Bay. I worked at P.B. for four years and I grew up where Hwys VV and O intersect so I spent a good deal of time in that place.

We were on our way back on the trail that follows the creek and two runners passed us. The woman shouted out "Brandon?" as they went buy. I didn't see who it was at first because we moved off to the side of the trail and I got whapped in the face by a branch. It turned out to be Jenny Malley (or Bertram). She was running with her husband and they were training for an off road half marathon. She said that old trail was a perfect place to train. We spoke briefly as they were in the middle of a workout and the mosquitos were getting bad as the day was heating up. I told her that I was surprised that she recognized me as most people from our class don't.

After we went our separate ways, it occured to me that we had a camera along as we usually take our annual family photo on the beach. It was obviously too late to get a picture and its not like I was going to catch them. I dont' like to drive 13 miles much less run that far. I was kicking myself since it would have made a great addition to the blog. Truely a lost opportunity.

She still looked great and her husband seemed very nice in the few minutes that we spoke.

Anyways, I thought you'd be interested in that since you two see each other from time to time. Say hi to her for me the next time you have lunch.

Hope all is well with you.

Brandon