Saturday nights in the 60s - Homemade Pizza

In the mid 1960s, our family moved from the brick Hewitt house in Lattimore to a rented house on West Warren Street in Shelby. Mom and Dad had bought a big lot in Shelby to build Mama's Dream House. In trying to decide exactly where to locate the house, they walked over the lot many times, drove stakes, then tied strings from stake to stake to 'see' where they liked the house best. This process took several years, so we lived in the rented house on Warren Street during that time. Mama never really loved the Warren Street house, but we always had alot of fun there. We were within walking distance of three schools - Graham, Oak and Shelby Junior High. We were also within bicycle distance to the Shelby City Park and to Uptown Shelby. So it didn't matter that I couldn't drive because I could get most everywhere on foot or bicycle. Judy and Penny were in high school, Cindy and Libby at Junior High and I was in the fifth grade at Graham. We had a trampoline in the backyard and many days all ages of kids would walk from school to our house to jump. It really wasn't unusual for 25 plus kids to be there - just jumping.

On Saturday nights, our family watched TV together and made homemade pizzas. TV was still fairly new then and we basically had three channels. The TVs had huge cathode ray tubes, rabbit ears for antennae, and broadcast in black and white. Most TVs ended up with a pair of pliers to change the channels because, after jumping up to change channels alot, the knobs would fall off. I remember watching Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon and we were all glued to the tube in awe when he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Sometimes on Saturday nights, Daddy would play cards with us. Daddy still loves to play poker, but the game at that time was Gin. We were all pretty good Gin players before long. On TV, we watched Flipper, Jackie Gleason and my favorite, the Carol Burnette Show. Flipper was a show about a very special dolphin who was like a water version of Lassie. I didn't know alot about Florida, but it seemed pretty wonderful and exotic to me. Jackie Gleason had a funny variety show with alot of characters like Crazy Joe, and the Honeymooners. What I loved to watch most on his show were the June Taylor dancers. They all had long legs and looked so sophisticated and smart when they performed those amazing - and very 60s - kaleidescope figures.

Carol Burnette had, by far, the funniest show on TV. Carol, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway could just walk across the TV screen and it would be hysterical. I loved so many of their skits and mostly I loved that they seemed to have so much fun together.

But the highlight of these Saturday nights was making pizza. We did not make the crust from scratch, but used a boxed mix. We didn't use a round pizza pan, but rectangular biscuit pans. Everyone had favorite ingredients and we all got to make our part of the pizza exactly the way we wanted it. We would decorate our 'masterpiece' so that when it came out of the oven, we knew which side was ours. This was a really creative time. The sixties were all about creativity and experimentation and we embraced that with our pizzas. To this day, I love sliced green olives on a pizza as much as the tomato sauce and cheese.

We only lived on Warren Street for five years. Mama said that after they had staked up the houseplan three times and the strings rotted three times she knew it just wasn't where they needed to build. Mama's heart was in Lattimore and they decided to build the dream house on Peachtree Road. I'm glad they built in Lattimore, but that house on West Warren Street has alot of happy memories.

So, I have been thinking about how much fun we had making homemade pizza and since both of the boys are home, tonight we each made our own masterpiece. Sure wish Carol Burnette was on.


Homemade Pizza - 60s style

1 Box Chef BoyArDee Cheese Pizza Kit
Make the dough according to the package and spread onto greased baking pan

Decide ahead of time what everyone wants on their side. Chop it, saute it, etc. Fresh basil, oregano, onion, olives, anchovy, peppers, tomato, pepperoni, hamburger, sausage are favorites at our house.

Sometimes, I make my own sauce, or at least add something to the boxed one.
I don't use the cheese that comes in the kit, because I don't like it. It is worth it to buy real parmesan and mozzarella and grate it yourself.

Divide up the pizza so that everyone knows where their side is.

Here's the hard part. You have to let everyone involved put what they want on their side. Anything goes.

Recently, we have had the fun of making homemade pizzas at several friends homes. Beth and John get a special dough and sauce and make them in their kitchen. Susan and Thomas get a special dough and sauce and make them in a backyard pizza oven. Everyone adds their own flavors from vegetables to herbs to meats, and they are all wonderful flavors. Besides how good they taste, the best part about homemade pizza is watching how much fun everybody has when they are encouraged to do their own thing.