Friday Night Pizza

Does your family have any weekly traditions that will one day become a part of your children's memories? A weekly tradition that we have that is really dear to me is Family Movie and Pizza Night.

FM&P Night has it roots from my Mom and Dad. As a kid, nearly every friday night, we had take out from Shakey's Pizza Parlor. It use to be located across from the Toyota center on Airport Blvd in West Columbia. I think an auto-parts store is there now.

Shakey's was great. I can testify that, if not for Shakey's, I would not have the video game habit that I now have. They had a line up of pinball machines, a jukebox and video games (Space Invaders, Pac Man, Galaga...the classics). Rumor has it, that my dad would have become a millionaire if the quarters he invested in those machines had been invested in Wall Street. "Can I have a quarter" was essentially my catch phrase.

They had this common room with big long tables for dining in. On Friday nights, a piano and banjo musician would entertain the commons. They showed silent B&W shorts (Three Stooges, Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy) on a movie screen. In 1977, the owner had a B&W short of Star Wars: it was the first of many times that I would see Star Wars.

My Dad had, at some point, been employed there. He seemed to know everyone back there and all of the guys where really friendly to me. Men with colorful names like Hatcher and Parthemus (at least, that's how I remember them). We went there so much, that they had a pizza named after my dad, "The Dirty Dave." I believe anchovies were included.

The biggest thrill of the evening was "Who got to ride home in the front seat holding the pizza?" Near my house was a hill that my Dad would always goose the gas peddle on his Beetle so that we would experience the thrill of taking flight. These were days before VCRs and we had something better: we had the Rockford Files!

So, today, I look forward to FM&P Night. A co-worker ribs me when I call up the local CiCi's pizza and order a larger peperoni pizza because I am so predictable. We no longer have Jim Rockford and his dad, but, we have a wealth of Classic DVDs available to us on Netflix.

FM&P Night is more to me than just eating pizza, drinking pepsi and watching "The Swiss Family Robinson:" It is a part of my childhood that I am giving away to my children.