Pizza Giant

Anytime the kids get three days of perfect attendance within a month, we have a pizza party.  My clientele, however, have little concept of the number three or that it results in food with melted cheese.  Real cheese, not school cheese.  Their eyes glow and they wag their tails when I explain (again) that they need only One More Day to achieve a phone call to the pizzeria that gives our school a deal.  So far, this year, it has occurred only once...now, I'm not saying that they can't count to three because they can and will tell me so overnovernover.  One day, however, when you are six years old is an eternity; three eternities and you are talking Einsteinian proportions.  I should make a chart that counts up to three, a pizza divided into thirds.  Visuals work more than concepts.

But the day arrives and the pizzeria is called for two sheets; I toss in a math lesson in case administration walks by: each sheet has 24 pieces, tell me how many pieces are in two and break it up into groups of tens and ones.  30 students each have a piece, how many pieces will be left over and so forth.  At 12:30, the office calls to report that the pizza delivery is here and that the fellow is bringing the pizza up to the room.  Really?  Usually four proud kids go downstairs to carry the large boxes; why is the pizza guy bringing them up?  Slowly, a shadow blocks the light coming in from the hall and the room eclipses.  Standing there is the biggest young man I have ever seen, he must have been six foot six and solid.  Thirty mouths dropped open.  A giant is bringing us pizza!  Not one squeak came from them.  He grinned.

Hiya, kids, I brought your pizza!  That broke the ice, and every child wanted to tell him their life story.  He turned to me and while explaining that somehow the sheet pizzas didn't work out so the owner sent six regulars, he opened the pizza blankets and the room smelled like Hey! Itsa Tony!, causing a cascade of noise and magic.  He was a happy, blue-eyed, red haired, baseball cap wearing beneficence, and started chatting with the kids like a good fairytale character does.  You doing your work?  You like pizza?  First grade teaching went the way of visiting giants who took time out from climbing beanstalks to deliver food; they believed that he liked them best, lookit all the pizza, Ms. Coburn!

He stood in the doorway, waved Bye, kids! and our giant was gone; the vibrations that some enchantment had just taken place hung in the air.  They felt special the rest of the day, and I have little doubt that it had nothing to do with pizza, but with the delivery fellow.  Thank you, Giant Pizza Guy.

Tonight in the city a wall of fog has thumped down over the buildings, blocking the view of what was to be an eclipse of the moon.  Last night it was clear, the moon shone brightly in the warm spring darkness, and we hoped that it would continue into the time of the event.  The only moon viewing to be witnessed will appear on various weather sites, unless you are a giant who strides with his head well above the white miasma.  Have you seen the moon, giant?  O yes, he may say, and it looks like a disc with pepperoni craters and seas of cheese.  Let me lift you onto my shoulders, so that you can see as well.  Isn't that what we do, lift each other up?  Just as he had.

Sleep well under a hidden moon, surrounded by phantasms of midnight fog; in the quiet I can hear a far away foghorn warning, warning, warning of sudden shallows, hidden sandbars, and channels opening into the inner harbor.  You are safe under the covers woven of stories and dreams, lay your head to rest on a pillow while the moon glows copper red above the atmosphere, an unseen gnomon ancient as a beating heart.  Good night, lift you up.