More thoughts on Friday pizza nights:

It seems strange to recall how old I was before I ever ate pizza, as my kids were spending time at pizza places before they were old enough to eat the stuff. When my kids were young, we went out for pizza once a week - usually on a Monday or Tuesday.

Happy Joe's Pizza, which originated in Davenport, IA, where we lived at that time, always had a family night special on Monday nights.

Strangely enough, Joe Whittey, who founded Happy Joe's, was a former Shakey's store manager. Here's a bit more on that story: Happy Joe's Pizza

One of our favorite family stories involves my son's first sign of word recognition -- well before he had been introduced to the alphabet -- and it could only have happened because of our taking him to Happy Joe's on a weekly basis. Here's what happened:

We were dropping him off at daycare one morning, and he made this announcement to our daycare provider, in a totally amazed voice: "It says 'pizza' on your jeans." We all looked at the rear pocket, which he was pointing to, and sure enough, the brand name printed there was "PIZZAZZ."