Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

Column: Pizza Party

Say the magic words "pizza party" at a school and chaos will ensue. There will be yelling, screaming, and the happiest group of kids you could possibly find outside of a birthday or Christmas morning. Kids love pizza and they like it even more when they can have it at school.

As a kid I would also get very enthused when a teach mentioned pizza, in fact I would get pretty darn excited anytime anybody mentioned pizza --- and still do.

During my elementary years, I would go just about every Friday night to have Shakey's Pizza. This was in the heyday of the chair when they had parlors all over the Midwest and western United States. There was something so magical about overeating their pizza which is to this day my absolute favorite. They also had "mojos" which in my opinion are the best appetizer of all time and when combined with the pizza made for an epic meal. And to top it off there was an arcade and that was a blast for the kids while the adults took down pitchers of beer. It was a sad sad day for me when the location in my hometown closed and it still irritates me.

Along with the gloriousness of Shakey's, there was no shortage of pizza options. Some restaurants would come and go but I can remember eating at places like Pizza Hut, Big Cheese Pizza and Godfathers. There also was delivery which my family started to get on Friday nights instead of going to Shakey's which was a bummer, but it was still pizza so I can't complain too much.

Once you get into high school and there is an added sense of freedom there becomes a lot more fast food and of course pizza in the diet and this was certainly the case for me. This didn't change when I moved away for my freshman year of college – it only intensified.

I think the two months I was away I ate pizza darn near daily. The cafeteria at the University was by no means bad, but there were a lot of late nights studying or taking part in some shenanigans that would work up an appetite. There was a really cheap place that would deliver to the dorms and you could get a medium pizza for like $5 bucks so it got to the point the delivery drivers knew me by name.

After a few months of college, I went home, and my mom said she would be ordering pizza for the Friday dinner because I probably didn't eat too much of it and would look forward to it. I had eaten so much pizza that I really just wanted a steak, but I did not mind once again eating pizza on a Friday night at home.

These days I'd still eat pizza like I did in college, but that is not going to work with the girls, so I try to keep it to once a week.

Pizza is also a highlight of any vacation I go on, in fact, I consider it a traveling pizza party. I always try and find a great place to get a slice whenever I visit somewhere new. I usually do a great job finding somewhere to get pizza, except for my last trip to Vegas when I was unsuccessful in finding pizza after midnight. You would think it would be easy to find a slice on the "Strip" at 1 a.m. on a Saturday but this is not the case at all. I'm sure it is there but I sure could not find it and ended up with a bunch of cheese dogs from "Hot Dog on a Stick" which were great, but still not pizza.

I also will order Chicago Style pizza online. It is a little pricey to ship but I do that once or twice a year for my fix of cheesy goodness.

And of course, a trip to Seattle is not complete with the first stop at Shakey's Pizza. It is a little bit out fo the way in Renton, but I always make sure that is the first thing to do on my list. And it tastes exactly the same which makes me as happy as a kid when you mention "pizza party".

 

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