JOY HOLTZ

Reading Jason Anderson's apple throwing story reminded me of my own apple throwing incident - which has a Joy Holtz connection. So here it is.

Probably every high school has one - the girl with the bad reputation - the class slut, if you will. Whether justified or not, Joy Holtz was that girl. Obviously I have no way of knowing if her reputation was based on fact or fiction. It's probably not true at all. Whatever the case, that's what a lot of people thought about her.

My first memories of Joy are from 7th grade. We never shared any classes together. But Joy was well known. She had a mouth on her. She was brash and cocky, and got in as much trouble as any of the "bad" guys in school. While detention tended to be a "boys only" club, Joy would be in there with us just as much as anyone. She took the bus to school. Kevin Dehne took the bus as well. One day on the way to school, Joy nailed Kevin in the face with her lock. Kevin required stitches and missed two days of school.

I'm not sure when exactly it happened. But Meff told me that he and Tom Grassman were at the annual Snowfest in Two Rivers, and were riding on the ferris wheel. Joy was in the cart right behind them, apparently with her sister (Letty?) and their mother. The three of them were teasing Meff and Tom, saying stuff like, "You wanna fuck us?" Mother and daughters... can you imagine?

I had Joy in Mr. Stodola's math class in 8th grade. My only real memory of her (save for her loud mouth) was that she loved the song "We Are The World" - especially Cyndi Lauper's part.

In our freshman year, I found myself eating lunch in the basement with Mike Clarksen, Greg Flemal, B.J. Lutterman, and Kevin Dehne. We were "the lunch bunch." Anyway, Mike mentioned that he had been to a party recently and saw a guy come downstairs after being with Joy in some bedroom. The guy was allegedly dejected because "Joy didn't swallow cum anymore." Again, I have no idea if this alleged event ever took place. But Mike insisted that it did.

In our senior year, Joy and I actually formed a bond in Mr. Burns' business math class. In the 4th quarter of that year, the class spent the last several weeks on some sort of project where we learned about checkbooks and stuff. We had mock checkbooks and had to make withdrawls and payments. It was incredibly simplistic. But the class was filled with dregs. So that's what we did. Anyway, although it was simple, we had an enormous amount of busy work - tedious adding and subtracting and such. If you made a mistake somewhere, you might have to go way back and start over. And that would suck. Joy sat right next to me. She and I decided that we would both do our own thing, but compare numbers as we went along. Mr. Burns was ok with a little comparison between students. I caught Joy making some mistakes along the way. And in all fairness, she caught one or two that I made as well. So we worked well together.

Anyway, after our final exam in that class, Mr. Burns slipped her a note which said something like "You copied the entire assignment from Burt, didn't you?" Joy told me about this after the exam. Joy said she wrote him a page-long response ripping him for his accusations. I think he was humbled by it. Had he questioned me, I would have stuck up for her.

To my knowledge, that's the last time I ever saw Joy Holtz. She must ended up being a credit or two short. Because she technically graduated with the class of 1990. Later on, I think she may have gotten a job in some capacity at Holy Family Hospital in Manitowoc. Last I knew, she was married, and is now known as Joy Herrera. I believe she lives in Manitowoc to this day.

Which leads me to my apple story. I believe Joy had a little brother. His name was Ricky Holtz. Ricky was four or five years younger than me. At some point around 6th or 7th grade, he was friends with a neighborhood kid (and friend of mine) named Bobby Streu. Ricky had come over to show off his new puppy. They came over to my house. Bobby and I came up with a plan to throw an apple at a car. So we walked in the field behind my house, stopping in an empty space three houses down (where a house actually stands today). We saw a school bus - a perfect target. We threw our apples. Bobby's toss sailed over the bus (probably on purpose). Mine hit square on the window, breaking it. I must have really tossed that thing hard, as school bus windows are tough. The bus was empty. And it screeched to a halt right in front of Mr. Myers' house - which was actually right across the street from Brad Strouf's. We took off running. A few minutes later, the police were on the scene. And despite my stance that whenever ANYTHING happened in my neighborhood, the cops would pay me a vist, for whatever reason, this time, they didn't. I got away with it.