Hot Crust and Greasy Pies: The Life and Times of a Pizza Eater

In 1949 Carl Sigman and Peter DeRose wrote the song, “It’s a Marshmallow World.” It’s a Christmasy tune, though it doesn’t mention Christmas. It’s more of a wintertime song as it likens snowy winter months to a marshmallow world. Ah. Cool. The first person to make it a hit was Bing Crosby. My favorite version is sung by Darlene Love and produced by Phil Spector on Brian Wilson’s favorite album of all time: A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. Winter might be a marshmallow world but baby, I’m living on a pizza planet.

I was born in 1982 and until 1989 my family (dad, mom, two sisters) lived in a small two-bedroom house on Barlow Street in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was a white stucco house with black accents on the outside. If you were to walk in the front door (which, you won’t, because, why would you?) there was a living room that doubled as my bedroom, mom and dad’s room off to the left and our kitchen was past the living room. At its end, there was a door to the backyard. To the left of the kitchen was a pink bathroom and additional bedroom where my sisters slept. There was a basement, but I vaguely remember it. Mostly that there was a bar in it and that it smelled like a basement.

I remember not being allowed to eat all the cookies out of the cookie jar. I did eat a lot of popcorn and Fig Newton’s in that house; and it was the first place I drank coffee. Kinda. It was out of a plastic cup and contained 99 parts milk to one-part coffee. I didn’t like it. I don’t remember…