by Kevin Porter

Created on: August 18, 2008   Last Updated: June 06, 2009

A Pizza Smorgasbord:

On one dreary autumn day in 1974, a rather chilly Tuesday afternoon, I sat listening to music alone in my room and thus masterfully medicated my melancholy teenage gloom. The thunderous blasts from Uriah Heep's Demons & Wizards LP were vibrantly serving as my self-prescribed therapy. Suddenly, that vital thunder sorrowfully waned in my sixteen-year-old ears. Circumstance caused me to regrettably reduce its soothing roar for my mother's calls to hear. From the door to the basement in the kitchen above, my mother yelled down to tell me that my friends Mark and Moe had come. I asked where they were and she said at the front door. Not wanting to leave my room just to let them in, I told her to send them on down and that is what she did. Within the confines of my basement domain my friends and I formed a loose huddle, all quite mundane. Swiftly my two friends sat smiling, apparently apprehensive, on the edge of my bed and I, seated at my desk, bent briskly towards them to alertly await what would be said. My curiosity was readily stilled, since those guys began with my name then came right out and told me the reason they came. They were on their way to the Factory and just wanted to know, if I wanted to go. Again, my curiosity was aroused and all because I needed to know what the Factory was. They explained that it was an old factory building, down near the falls, which had been spruced up as part of Spokane's downtown revitalization preparations for Expo '74 and it now housed shops and restaurants. Furthermore, they had heard that the pizzeria there hosted an all you can eat pizza smorgasbord, every Tuesday night, and the very best part of all was its price, only two dollars! Yeah, sure, I curtly but excitedly declared. However, in retrospect, I realize those boys deserved a greater show of enthusiasm than the one I gave them and even some words of thanks. Remember, Mark and Moe had just saved me from a desperately boring day. Instantly grabbing my parka, suspended from shoulder to shoulder about the back of my chair, I hurriedly put it on. Irresistibly thoughts of that old jacket of mine, from over thirty years ago, remarkably flood my mind and I vividly visualize its every detail. It had a dark blue exterior with a dark orange inner lining and an artificial fur trimming along the rim of its hood. Wow, with thoughts of that long-gone jacket so prominently pronounced, I inadvertently recall the jackets those other two

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