Right Angles Pizza, Part 1

Readers of this blog should know by now that I like unusual or funny stories. I like hearing them, and I like telling them. Many of my favorite stories come from my family, and these have been chronicled in the Tales From The Lebowskis series of entries that have taken up most of this blog for the past few months. However, not all of the stories that I love have come from my family, and so today I'll begin bringing you tales from other sources as well. Now, this is not the end of Tales From The Lebowskis by any means. But I think it's time to break from those classic stories for a little while and bring you a few other amazing tales.

Today I'd like to begin relating to you the story of a very special pizza restaurant in central Connecticut. This story is not my story, my connection to this restaurant is tangential at best. A good friend of mine who will go by the pseudonym Clive McEnroe told me all about this restaurant and the man behind it. His sister, Ashley McEnroe, was employed as a waitress there from about 2000-2006. Clive has graciously given me permission to print his stories here, and we have gone over the details together to ensure that you, the reader, get a finished product that is both amusing and accurate.

The story of Right Angles Pizza (not the real name of the restaurant, of course, but appropriately close and a reflection of a detail to be revealed later) is really the story of a man. A Greek man. A shockingly Greek man. This man is Aristotle "Telly" Souvlaki. His appearance, manner, and mode of speaking are all strikingly stereotypical of a 1st-generation immigrant to the US from Greece of his age. But Telly meets not only the modern Greek stereotypes, he even meets some of the ancient ones. Notably, he is a man who loves recreational geometry. He would periodically interrupt his employees while they were in the middle of helping customers to pose them little geometry quizzes such as "how can I tell the height of this room without getting up from my chair?" and then proceed to explain basic to mid-level trigonometric and applied geomtric formulae while his customers sat hungry. Hence the pseudonym "Right Angles Pizza."

But Telly's story begins in the nation of Greece, where he was born, raised, and educated up until he was about 16 years of age, in the early 1950's. Something happened then that would set his life on a course less travelled than most. One day he was outside his school on a recess when a younger student began to annoy him by throwing pebbles at him. Irritated, young Telly demanded the boy cease. He did not. Telly warned him that, "if you do not stop, I will slap you!" He didn't stop. Telly stood up, walked over to the boy and delivered a mighty slap across his face, as promised. Unfortunately for Telly, his hand-face thunderclap was witnessed by a teacher, who told Telly that he would contact his father and let him know about his son's misdeed.

Now, most people would've just gone home and faced the music, or maybe tried to avoid their father for the night. Telly decided more drastic measures were needed to avoid the shame of facing his irate father. He left the school and immediately went to the docks and got hired onto a cargo ship bound for South Africa. He spent the next decade in South Africa working, making interesting and sometimes shady contacts, and developing a lifelong love of South African wine. He did not contact his family at all during this time, nor did he contact Georgia, his teenage sweetheart whom he had promised to marry and take away to America. But he did not forget.

10 years after his sudden departure, Telly returned to his native land unannounced. He strode up to the door of the girl he had left behind 10 years prior and announced to her "Georgia! It is me, back! We can now be married and go to America!" She was neither joyous nor angry, merely confused. "Telly?... Where have you been?" But in the end, love won out and married they were and off to America they went. Their next few decades are unknown to me, and when our story continues next time, we will pick up the dawning years of the 21st century at the family owned-and-operated business Telly, Georgia, and their 3 children would run: Right Angles Pizza.