Cassi Creek: People
consider the first language you learn to speak as a mother tongue or milk
language.
Is there also
a mother clam chowder, a mother cheeseburger or a mother pizza that drags you
swiftly back, salivating uncontrollably for a long ago favorite food?
The first
time I had a pizza that wasn’t from a freezer case or that had a chef on the
mix box was in autumn 1961. I recall
going into a new restaurant in the afternoon to try their pizza. It was more exciting than I can describe,
more delicious than any I’ve ever had since then. It was worth spending bus money and walking
home from uptown for the rest of the week.
It was/is
owned and operated by a family who emigrated from Greece. They’ve made a tremendous success of their
business.
The pizzas
were hand tossed in the front window in full view of customers and passersby by
an older family member, uncle perhaps.
He always had flour-covered hands.
The waitresses wore dark skirts and most of them had white handprints on
their butts. Not acceptable today,
merely a fact of life then.
I’ve eaten
many pizzas there, dine in or carry out.
I’ve consumed many liters of coffee waiting to sober up enough to walk
to the car that magically stayed in its lane and hit nothing on or off the
road.
I can recall one night when three of us spent
an evening drinking in the Missouri River bottom lands then drove back across
the river to get pizza. We tried for the
angle parking in the driveway to the state capital. Somehow, the driver managed to park parallel to
the road, in newly planted flowerbeds.
We figured we’d do more damage trying to correct the error so we made it
across the main street to Arris’. The
waitress immediately came over with three cups and three pots of coffee. Miraculously, we’d done no harm to anyone but
ourselves. We somehow escaped being
ticketed for the parking violation, and two of us managed to avoid losing all
the coffee and pizza.
Here’s the
web site. Look at the 1961 prices.
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