A Hoagie in Hoosierville

Sometimes, the planets just align, ya know?

One of my biggest gripes with the state of Indiana is the tragic dearth of good Italian food. Yes, I know that there's an Olive Garden. Yes, I've eaten at Casa in Fort Wayne. But I mean real Italian food, made by squat, hardened old women with leathery brown skin who wear kerchiefs over their hair and wave wooden spoons around in a fury and their thin, balding, jovial, mustachioed husbands. Restaurants that make their own fresh cheeses every morning and smell of herbs and marsala, with red-and-white checked table cloths and sappy violin music. Oh, the pizza. How I yearn for that pizza. Even the sports-bar pizza. Any pizza from east of the Appalachian Mountains.

Well friends, on Thursday night, the planets aligned over Logansport, Indiana.

Kevin and I were driving through Logansport, seeking sustenance. We happened upon a diminutive, white cinderblock building labeled "U-Know Pizza." Well, I thought, it should at least be edible. So we parked.

The "dining room" of the place could have been the waiting room of a mechanic's garage. White linoleum tile, grubby red vinyl chairs, roll paper towels on the tables, a TV in the corner with Entertainment Tonight on it. Now, you may think this sounds rather unpromising, and you may be wondering why we didn't walk out an go find a nice chain restaurant. But any Philly native knows (can I get an amen?) that the best pizza often comes from the seediest of places. So things, at this point, were actually looking up.

The menu was scribbled in a rainbow of streaked ink on a white board. And on the menu were pizza, hot sandwiches, and hoagies. Hoagies. Not subs or grinders. Hoagies. (Could it be?) We approached the counter to place an order, and then I noticed the man making the pizza: skinny, with white hair, a big nose, and brass aviator glasses. Running shoes, baggy khaki pants, a grubby white tee shirt, and a worn Phillies baseball cap. Friends, this man is a dead ringer for my grandfather. No lie.

So we ordered, and we settled into the only table in the "dining room" that was not occupied by people who weren't eating or piles of odds and ends, books in hand, to wait for our food. Not two paragraphs down the page, the man comes out, sits in a chair nearby, and strikes up a conversation with us. And he has an accent. The accent. Guess where this man spent the better part of his life? South Philly! Ahhh!

How refreshing it was to shoot the breeze with someone who can complain about the traffic on 95 and who has a preference between Pat's and Geno's, who understands how neat it is that my sister went to CAPA on Broad Street and has been to the Fells Planetarium and has laughed at the dorks who barrel up the Art Museum stairs, waving their fists around at the top and belting out the Rocky theme.

So we chatted merrily with this man (Mike is his name) for an hour, about the economy and food and life, and I was sad to leave. We ordered an Italian hoagie to go and ate it for supper on Friday. It was the real deal (and so was the pizza, by the way).

This totally random encounter lifted my drooping spirits so much. I miss my city. Life is just so funny sometimes.