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I know
kids in school complain about teachers, assignments, parents, homework, tests,
cafeteria food, classmates, buses, pick-up and drop-off, and sports events. But
I promise that all the kids who went to my high school would complain
about all that AFTER they told you about the general attitude and atmosphere in
the building—which we all thought was the coolest place for the strangest
reasons. See, it was both the best place in the world and also the freakiest,
depending on whether or not it was a national or local holiday. And that’s part
of the reason that the school got its official real name and nickname—“Holiday
High School”—but that’s not the only answer.
You see, it was the way that the students dressed
and acted during the school year that reflected their views about holidays—and
how they “showed their colors,” you could say, by their gear. Everyone was
supposed to have his or her own favorite holiday, and we expected to dress
accordingly. The school mascot was a scorpion, but we nicknamed everyone in our
group as “The Dirt Devils.” You’ve probably never seen one before: when the
wind whips up the dry desert sand and soil and sends a small whirling cloud
dancing along the ground. It can be hard to avoid them when they happen—and we
felt we were the same way. If you didn’t watch out, we’d stir up a bunch of
trouble and mischief!
Naturally, we took it to a new level. We had
leprechauns, werewolves, vampires, 4th-of-July patriots, and even a
Frankenstein monster in my circles. And they were some great kids! To me, the
STRANGE ones were the athletes and the intellectual brainiacs. We had them too,
in bunches. It wasn’t so much about their clothing and images and personalities
as it was about their attitude about themselves and us. And the way we acted
and misbehaved is why our classmates called it “Horror Day High School.” To
their dismay, we were proud of earning that nickname.
The real name of the school was supposed to be “Holliday,”
and we all said it was from the character from the Wild West who was part of
Wyatt Earp’s group, “Doc” Holliday. It was really named for a famous lady in our
town—her name was Margaret Holliday—and her claim to fame was that she was the
first woman doctor in our town after her family moved from nearby Boulder City.
We’re on a part of the south side of Las Vegas, Nevada. Old Margaret opened the
school back in the late 1800s in hopes that she could get more attention to the
need for qualified doctors and medical people. She had a good idea, I think,
but I wish she had settled herself somewhere closer to the ocean. I’m not a Southwest
desert-style person, and we tend to attract a lot of people whose families are coming
and going from one part of the state to the other, and sometimes back and forth
to California or elsewhere, like Texas or Arizona. The school is no longer
there—they bulldozed it down about 15 years ago, and it was replaced by a
shopping mall. We’ve all grown up and moved away, but when we come back for
reunions and visits to see each other, it’s a different place in our minds to
sit in our cars and look back and remember what used to be there and what we
did in the school for fun and amusement. And also what we did for mischief and
trouble. We did plenty of both.
Oh, as an example—here’s something about our nearest competitive school and sports opponents—the high school in Boulder City—because it had a cemetery next to it. (Yes, it’s still there: it’s just a fenced-in area maybe 20x20.) The gravestones are from the late 1800s, and it’s a part of the Holliday family legacy. When we would follow the bus with our fans for Friday night games, we would get a small bonfire blazing outside the fence. The scene always raised a question and a cheer: “How come your high school has a cemetery, and ours doesn’t?”
Our answer was just waiting for the comeback:
“Holiday High School students graduate. Yours don’t. And we bury the losing
teams after Friday night games.”
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