Delete that movie

I hate the fact that there was a movie called the Bucket List. Everyone has these grandiose plans of what they want to do before they die. Given enough money, you'd probably even make it. I yearn for simpler things. The one that comes to mind most often is learning how to throw pizza dough. I remeber going to this place called Shakey's Pizza when I was a kid. The booths were red pleather/vinyl and the place was dark past the salad bar. They played old Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin and other silent films while you ate.

The smell lingers in my mind today. Fresh flour, baking pizza, garlic, pepperoni. I still see the red plastic glass that was filled with real Coke made with real sugar and clear ice cubes that made nice crunchy sounds in my mouth as I chewed them. My mother taught me how to make expanding snakes by scrunching down the paper wrapper on the straw and then dribbling a drop or two of soda (everyone there called it pop) on the paper and it would grow. Cheap parlor trick, I know, but it was one of my favorite parts of pizza night.

The thin aluminum pizza pans for cooking and serving the pizza were stacked high behind the counter. All glass so you could see the guys throwing the dough and making these perfect circles from a lump of dough. They'd toss it in the air and catch it with a gleam in their eye as the kids would squeal, first in horror that he'd miss and then delight when he caught it neatly for another bout of tossing. Waiting in seeming agony for our order to be called. Fighting for the parmesan cheese shaker and then pounding the cheese out of it. The first bite pure ambrosia. The kind of taste that makes you close your eyes for a second or just to take it all in.

I know it's odd that's probably the top thing in my list of things to do, but it's not a high priority yet. I should work on that. I just googled Shakey's and found I could to to Georgia to visit one. I wonder if they are hiring? Perhaps I could just take a class? No worries, I'm getting there.