Hand-tossing pizza wasn't even best part of job

Some people can walk into a room, sit down and play the piano. Impressive.

Others can dunk a basketball or yodel or know the names of U.S. presidents in order. Some people can talk about exotic travels or how they can sew.

I have exactly one skill that impresses people: I can hand toss a pizza.

Really.

In a life that includes a 33-year (and counting) marriage, raising two really good sons, a steady affection for Air Supply and the ability to remember baseball lineups from 1976, the single thing that people are fascinated by is that I can toss a pizza, something I learned as an 18-year-old in my hometown.

It's not hard. And that skill isn't even the best thing about that job, at Red Baron Pizza.

It's how I earned money throughout college, while I dated Mrs. Brad. It taught me how not only toss a pizza, but how to pour a soda with minimal bubbles and how to mop. I earned barely more than minimum wage, but tips from delivering pizzas put gas in my car and random leftover pizzas fed me during those years.

Like many pizza parlors, Red Baron was filled with college-age employees. Unlike most, it was privately owned, so we knew the guy who signed our paychecks. Jim seemed a lot older, but he was about 30. And he liked us.

There weren't many employees and when someone quit, Jim would ask us if we knew anyone who wanted to work there. I got a job without knowing anyone there, but during the time I worked there, many of my friends ended up with Red Baron Pizza – either I recommended them or someone I recommended recommended them.

We hand-tossed pizzas. We delivered them. We got to know the regulars.

For instance, when Bob ordered a pizza – he was a troubled man who ordered pizzas, paid for them and then stormed out angrily before picking them up – we always put on extra ingredients, since we knew we'd be eating it.

I have a variety of Red Baron memories:

• The night three employees squared off in a parking lot brawl with three other guys (while I cowered).
• The time Jim bought an expensive copy machine so he print 100 copies of our menu every three months.
• The big-screen TV, where we showed local softball games videotaped by another of my friends.
• The rubber mat from the kitchen that was cleaned in the driveway. My friend Chuck, coming back from a delivery, would spin his rear wheels on it, shooting it into the street.

After years of working there –as I prepared to get married –I landed a full-time newspaper job. I left Red Baron, but stayed friends with Jim and my co-workers.

I've worked at two newspapers (including the Daily Republic for most of my adult life), a church, an online auto auctioneer and my current gig. I've loved them all, but something about Red Baron Pizza sticks with me through the years.

It's not the pay, although it was OK.

It's not the pizza, although it was excellent.

It's not the fact that Jim got tickets and we all traveled to watch the Joe Montana-to-Dwight Clark NFC Championship Game in January 1982.

It's not the fact that Jim was the videographer when Mrs. Brad and I married.

It's not even that I can hand-toss pizzas.

It's that I was lucky enough to have a really fun job with people I liked during an important time in my life.

Although being able to hand-toss a pizza is still pretty cool, isn't it?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.