Pizza to go—a long way

I like pizza. Actually, I love pizza. There are basically two kinds of pizza: good and better. If not for health reasons, I would eat pizza more often. A pizza supreme¾just thinking about it makes me salivate.

Although I love pizza, there has to be some special reason to go outside of Stillwater to eat pizza. Good pizza is available here; so, while I might drive to Oklahoma City or Tulsa or elsewhere to go to a well-known or specialty restaurant, I won’t do it just for pizza.

However, there is one place where we used to drive and eat pizza—Tahlequah. When my father was still alive and living in a retirement community there, we made the two hours-plus drive to visit him and quite often that visit included taking him to a restaurant for pizza. We did so for two reasons. One, the restaurant serves excellent pizza. Two, I love the name of the restaurant: Sam and Ella’s. Remembering this is a restaurant, try saying the name quickly without smiling. How can you not like eating pizza at Sam and Ella’s?

But driving to Tahlequah to eat pizza doesn’t put you on the road long enough to get settled in for the drive compared to what a man from Madison, MS, drives for pizza.

Try 20 hours one way.

More than 30 years ago, his family moved from Stoughton, MA, to Madison, MS, and for years the family missed its favorite pizza—Town Spa Pizza. So, 10 years ago he began driving each year from Madison to Stoughton, a 20-hour drive one way, to buy pizza for the family.

That must be some kind of pizza. If I’m ever in Stoughton, you can bet that I’ll stop by Town Spa Pizza and give it a taste.

In an interview with CNN, the man said he brought home 150 pizzas last year and 250 this year. He packs them in coolers and hightails it back to Mississippi.

The owner of the Town Spa Pizza in Stoughton said the man’s annual order is “our biggest order to go.”

I guess so. That might be the understatement of the year.

There are few things I would drive 20 hours one way for, and pizza is not one of them. However, thinking about this made me stop and ask myself some questions. What would I drive 20 hours for? Perhaps more importantly, what might I drive two hours or even 10 minutes for? Whatever my answers, chances are they involve doing something for my own pleasure or satisfaction. In other words, selfishness.

But, would I drive any distance or time for the benefit of others? Am I willing to even walk down the block or across the street to assist someone in need of help?

Would I go as far as to show friendship and to be helpful as I would to enjoy a pizza supreme?