When it's cold you can smell the pizza.

I live about a block away from two pizza places on opposite sides of a nearby street. Often on nights where it's cold here, that means it's VERY VERY STILL too. No breeze = cold. On those nights when I step out in the back to let out the dog, I can smell the pizza. But only when it's cold and the breeze isn't diluting the pizza scent.

With the fragrant Papa Johns arouma around me, I got to thinking about pizza memories. There are just so many. Some of the first times I can remember being in the Pizza Ranch in my hometown, in approximately 1987. I can remember going there in high school. And there were pizza parties for the famed State Fair Singers and Jazz band in almost ten years ago. I can remember eating pizza with my dad when I visited Luther for college. Speaking of college, there was a lot of pizza there, too. Lots, I tell you. A staggering amount for a small Iowa town, really.

For me pizza is happy memories,like hanging out with Pete and our friend Adam late at night, eating leftover pizza from Adam's part-time job when we should have been studying music history. If I'd studied, maybe then I wouldn't of had to take the remedial music history class I failed when I started graduate school. Instead I was enjoying Cactus Bread.

Well, I'm far away from the Pizza Ranch and Mabe's now. But I can't help but still lovin' me some pizza. Probably I'll bring some home later this week. Then I'll have the "working at a cool job enoying my late 20s" pizza memories. I'd like that. Just the way I like it when it's cold and you can smell the pizza.