Dawn of the dead.

From the moment that Free Wheeler Pizza was conceived, in the middle of the night by a half dozen inebriated out-of-Staters dismayed at the lack of food delivery service in the Salt Lake Valley, it’s been a counter-culture kind of place.

It has attracted employees from the likes of law-school students to a guy who used to hang himself vertically by meat hooks for relaxation.  And everything in between.  They either lasted 2 days and forced the place out of their memories, or several years and their ears still perk up when they hear the words ‘Free Wheeler’.

The most recently acquired partner wanted otherwise, he wanted to portray a more corporate image.  That may or may not have resulted in the recent, thankfully temporary, demise of the business, but it did cut me out of their payroll business for a more professional payroll service.

Now, after a couple of weeks on the Coroner's slab and a quick resurrection, things have changed.  The newly acquired partner is off to greener pastures in another state and the original partner is back at the helm.  New partner still holds financial interest in the business, but he’s going to be a semi-silent, long-distance partner.

The first order of business for original partner was to get me back on the payroll, doing the payroll.

Yup, I’m once again gainfully employed by 3 different companies, and a part of the Free Wheeler business.  Makes me happy.  Not just that I’ll be bringing in a little more money, but that the people of Free Wheeler (employees included) were happy that I would be processing their paychecks and coming by at least once every couple weeks to drop them off and shoot the breeze for a couple hours.

Happy days are here again, skies are clear and blue again…

122 Dey Street, Hightstown, New Jersey

… I was looking through some boxes of old papers in the basement and came across the copy of my birth certificate I got when we went on the family cruise back in 2003.  On it was listed the address where my parents were living at the time, the house I spent my first 3 years in.  The house where my brother and I (5 and 3 yrs old at the time) “cleaned” our new-born sisters diapers for my mom.  We cleaned them by wiping the mess off of them onto the wall paper.  Back when wallpaper was paper, not the easily cleanable vinyl it is now.  Yeah, mom & dad were pretty happy with us.

… So I decided to look up the old place on Google Maps.  As soon as I saw the picture from above, I knew it was the right place. Not exactly sure why, but I had a vague feeling that I remembered the curve at the end of the street and the woods down there.  I’m also pretty sure that big building across the street wasn’t there, I remember crossing the street to visit a really old lady (probably in her 50’s) ‘cause she had the best candy, out in the open, on her coffee table.  I remember being told years later that she was a Holocaust survivor.

… It amazes me the images and feelings that these pictures brought back after some 40+ years.  Of course I’ll never be sure how much of them are things that I was told later in life, and how much I actually remember, but I have pictures in my head of that candy dish, with the rectangular brown candies in it, sitting on the coffee table.  And I remember wanting to go down the street and climb through the wrought iron fence to play in the woods.  And that I was Steve, and the other Steve in the neighborhood was “Steve-down-the-block”.  Which was ironic because in the neighborhood I moved into when I was 4 (to 14), there was “Big Steve” (older than me), “Little Steve”  (younger than me) and, once again, I was just “Steve”.

Hope you made it home safe too....

I was down in the Daybreak subdivision (115000 So 5000 W) around 7:30 when the storm hit. They had already been hit pretty bad from the first storm, the one that came in from the south. It was raining up here in Sugarhouse when I left, and they had already had about 6" of snow. That one completely missed the north end of the valley, I couldn't even tell it snowed until I hit around 90th South.

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Well, the second storm came in from the north, and it hit hard. The roads were all snowpacked, including the freeway. At the 7200 South/I-215/I-15 interchange area traffic was slowed down to 20 MPH (for those of you unfamiliar with SLC, let's just say it's a confusing area when the weather is good). It took me over an hour to make a 30 minute drive. But it was worth it, I'd had a lot of fun. I was visiting with an old friend, Carol, from my early Free Wheeler days, back when I was about 19. I wrote about her earlier on here when I went to her 60th birthday this summer. I hadn't seen her or her family for over 10 years, and a mutual friend called me out of the blue for the birthday party. We promised to keep in touch, and since I'm at the same house I was in 10 years ago, she sent me a Christmas card and invited me out to her son's house on Christmas.

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Her daughter wasn't at the birthday party because she lives in Ohio, but she was there tonight. I remember her as a 14 year old, when she would answer phones at Free Wheeler (she's 40 now, it's been a lot longer since I saw her). I walk in and say HI to all the people I remembered from the birthday party and she looks at me and asks "Do you remember me?" I stutter, stall and probably have a blank look on my face when she says "I pulled your pants down on 21st South." - "Sheri, holy crap!"

-> Screen starts to go all rippley as we fade into flashback <-

-> The edges of the screen remain foggy <-

It's the summer of '83, I'm managing the Free Wheeler Pizza in Sugarhouse, Sheri is answering the phones that night as her mother, Carol, the aforementioned friend, is delivering pizzas. Carol's sister-in-law Jan, Sheri's aunt, is going along with Carol for the entertainment. It's hot, even hotter in the store right by the ovens, where I'll be spending most of the evening, so all I'm wearing is a pair of those light lycra swimming trunks for pants. (Yes, I have a shirt, shoes and even a hat on too). It's rush hour, so traffic is backed up right in front of the store. I go outside to talk to Carol about who knows what, she and Jan are sitting in the car, just about to leave on a delivery. I'm leaning over the car talking in the window when, whoosh!, all of a sudden my pants are down below my knees. Sheri didn't expect them to go down so easily. Shocked, I stand up quickly, the window of the car with the two faces of the women I was talking to right at crotch level. They get an eyefull, literally. Hell, a bunch of commuters got an eyefull.

-> Rippley effect as we return from the flashback <-

I didn't talk to Sheri for the rest of the night. I got over the embarassment, got a few compliments from Carol and Jan, and eventually forgave Sheri.

Of friends and enemies.

The day started out slow, as in relaxing. We all met over at Alba's for breakfast, ate well, again, and sat and chatted for a while. The plan for later was for my older brother and I to drive up to the Burlington Mall, he was meeting a friend there for lunch and I was going to look for some books for the flight home. It wasn't until the 80's that hanging out at the mall became a way of life for kids, so there wasn't any big flood of memories walking around the mall. But I did have some good pizza in the food court and got the books I needed. After an hour or so, I picked up my older brother, said hi and bye to his friend and we headed off to Lexington, to see things that would bring back memories.

Now picture this; it's kind of a sleepy neighborhood, we'd just had a heavy rain so everything was wet and it was cloudy and a little drizzly out. Two minivans pull up and 4 adults and 2 kids get out. They start walking around pointing, talking and taking pictures. One of the adults gets into the white minivan and leaves (to get gas and use the facilities, but the neighborhood didn't know that). Little brother and I are taking a picture of the old Fire Alarm call box, (9-1-1 of the 60's), on the telephone pole at our property's edge when a lady comes out of the house next door and asks "What are you doing?" Now, every neighborhood had one, the crotchety old lady that's always telling everyone what to do. You know, the one that without any conscious thought evolves into the focus of all the kids scorn and harassment. This was her, the voice, the words and the tone, struck a chord in my soul and I knew. I said something about having lived next door and when she said she had lived in the house for a long time I said "Mrs. Carbone? I'm Steve Rossi, I used to live next door." Instantly her demeanor, her face, changed completely. With almost a smile she looked at my little brother and said "This must be Danny, the baby?" We confirmed it and she said "And Alex, the older one?" Face change again, tone gets a little bit stern, kind of like she's sharing a serious secret with us. "He and I had a few altercations before." Uh, yeah. He tried to drive you crazy, he even admitted that when we got back in the van to leave. Well, just about then he came back from filling up the van and we did the introductions. From there on in the conversation was great, she seemed sincerely happy to see us all again. She told us about everyone who was still living there (just her and Mrs. Marble), all the people who had moved away or passed away. We heard about her son, who was a coupel years younger than me, and how he was running a farm up in New Hampshire, and how her daughter was getting her PhD at Harvard (and we thought the son was the brainaic). She was going out to lunch with Mrs Marble, but she invited us to go around back of her house so we could see our old back yard. It's amazing how different people are when you grow up. So we got up the guts to go over to our old house and knock on the door, introduced ourselves and got to see the inside. Big changes, they'd knocked out 3 walls, swapped the kitchen and the dining room and built a second level deck off the dining room. The owner then invited us to go ahead and look in the back yard. It was so green and so different, but we could still see the foundation that the rabbit hutch had sat on, and had burned to the ground on.

Finally we decided to move on. My older brother and I drove around checking out our old haunts, including the Middle School we went to (William Diamond, named after a drummer boy in the revolution) and our elementary schoool. After that we met them again, this time at Alexander's Pizza, a small pizza place around the corner from our house that has been there since before we moved there in '64. We'd just had lunch an hour or so before, but had to have something here also, so I ordered a small meatball sub. Now, small ended up being what you call big at Subway or one of those other chain sandwich shops. But, I was still on vacatrion so I ate it. Then we headed back to the Cape, each hitting a few more haunts on the way.

My older brother and his family moved back to Lexington in the 80's and lived there for a few years. We decided to go around and look at a couple of the houses they had lived in. Found the first one and took a couple pictures and then went to the second one. We pulled over to get a picture of the house and just after I snap the picture I hear "Pervert" yealled from inside the garage. Sorry kid, I wasn't taking a picture of you, we hadn't even noticed you there, or that the garage door was even open. We just looked at each other, laughed, took another picture of the house and left. Man, you can't do anything these days without being accused of something. From there we went to the golf course to check out the huge hill we used to sled down in the winters. I've been in Utah too long, it looked all but level.

From there we headed off to Providence, where we were going to spend the night so we wouldn't have far to drive for the plane in the morning. It was really nice to get home, and get dry. For the entire weekend I'd been in the Boston area I had felt somewhere between damp and wet. It was beautiful to visit there, but I was happy to be home.

I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends...

Saturday Writer and I went to a backyard wedding. It was for the son of one of the teachers I worked closely with at Writers school. It was a great, and very un-traditional, wedding and a testament to good neighbors. The wedding itself was right next door in the neighbor's back yard, the reception in the groom's parent's back yard. Their neighbors opened up their yard and their house for the party, which flowed between the two back yards. It was cool.

The wedding was great, the pastor was in his 20's and the ceremony itself was a well blended cross between traditional ceremony and stand-up comedy. The music at the reception was an exercise in contradiction, from the traditional incredibly romantic choice for the first dance & the dance with the parents (of whose titles I know not), intertwined with songs like the theme song to "Married With Children" and "Every Rose had it's Thorn". The food was great, and, well, they had Corona, need I say more? (Ok, for those of you who don't drink - it's a darn good beer). The company was awesome, it was wonderful to see so many (ok, it was only 5) people I worked with at the old school, and some of the students I taught. The only downer: I learned a lesson on not putting my elbows on the table. Seems there was a bee that was as interested in my food as me, and when I rested my arm on the table he was right below it. Yeah, he was mad, I got stung and now he's dead. But 3 days later my my arm is still swollen, and itches like an SOB. Ah well, it was still quite worth it.

30 years.

Well, the 30 year reunion wasn't as much fun as I remember the 20 year one being, but it was still nice. The first evening we met out in front of the school. If you've ever seen any of the High School Musical movies, then you've seen the courtyard in front of my school, that's where the movies were filmed. The building's not the same, they tore it down and rebuild it over a decade ago, but like in the movie, it really is named East High School. Of course we weren't the Wildcats, we were the Leopards, but they even kept our school colors, red & white. Anyway, moving on before I get too narcissistic about the movies, as I walk down the stairs from the parking lot to cross the street one of my classmates is already standing at the corner, waiting for the light to change. I walk up to him and he sticks out his hand, introduces himself and comments on how he decided he was just going to introduce himself to everyone, since after 30 years most of us wouldn't recognize each other. Good thinking, and adopting his philosophy made things easier as I mingled. As I walked up to the crowd, I recognized Tracy immediately, she was with another classmate, and unfortunatley I've forgotten her name. Looking at the pictures I took in back then, we noticed she wasn't in any, and figured out why. It seems that she and Tracy and Gail (who was also there) had a falling out in our senior year, and she was persona non grata in ouor group. Which also explains why I didn't know her as well as the others. The only other person that made it from our group was Annette, who I also recognized immediately. I had really hoped my best friend, Ed, would make it, he had said that he planned on it, but he wasn't there. 10 years ago there were about 12 people from our little group, this year only 4 made it. Which is why it wasn't as much fun as the last one, but the 4 of us still had a great time. The first night we just sat around and chatted, mingled a little bit. The second night was a more formal affair at the Marriott Hotel. I mingled a lot more, talked to some of the parents of students I had when I taught at Churchill Jr. High, and some of the other people I knew a little more peripherally (if that's a word?). I also ran into an ex-student who was working for the portrait studio that was taking pictures for the event. We had dinner, then they had a raffle where the number right before mine, and right after mine was called, but mine wasn't. But that's ok, because the one person in our group that lives in another state won a gift certificate to Emigration Market, a locally owned, independent grocery store, which she gave to me since she wouldn't get a chance to use it. Then they gave out the awards. It was kind of a get to know your classmates kind of thing, the MC would ask something like "Who has more than 3 kids?" and everyone who did would raise their hands, then he'd up the number until only one person had their hand up. (by the way, 9 was our maximum). He asked about grandchildren (Annette won that one with 7), living closest to the school, farthest, most moves and things like that. We also discovered that there was one of our classmates that not only lived in the same house as when she was in high school, but still owned the Jeep she drove. (She lives just down the street from where I lived.) The really funny part was the gift certificates they were giving out. (Those of you who weren't in SLC in the 70's please bear with me.) $50 gift certificate to Saans Photography, $50 gift certificate to The Chalk Garden, $50 to Wolfe's Sporting Goods and $50 to Rick Warner Ford were among the ones they gave out. We were surprised that they include Grand Central or Bill & Nada's. (Get it now you SLC'ers?) I didn't figure it out until the 4th gift certificate, when I looked over at Gail and asked "Hey, didn't Wolfe's close down a long time ago?" Yes, my friends, they were giving out certificates to businesses that no longer existed, but were around when we were in school. That was a lot of fun. The re-creation of the Hawaiian dance from our Senior Class Hello Day Assembly the guys did, with topless 48 year olds, was somewhat disturbing and my friends and I were completely absent in the photo slide show they did, so that had limited appeal. We did laugh at the thought of us brining my photos up and saying, "Now for the seemier side of things..." But we decided not to. Overall it was an enjoyable time, it was nice to see some of the people who were such a big part of my life so long ago, catch up with what they were doing and promise to, if nothing else, see each other again in 10 more years, at the 40th.