Salerno's in Old Forge

Next - Getting insulted at Salerno's in Old Forge is just a matter of course...there really is a good pizza place in Montrose - especially since Aunt Martha paid for it...Aunt Martha became my newest bestest hero an hour later...Grant Adams is the bomb and carrier of good news - what a basement his brother has!!! 
Sunday - New York Strips - TROVATO'S MEAT MARKET CLARKS SUMMIT PA ($69.66). Leon makes sure the Travato kids got a boost for their college since Timmer told me they had the best beef for BBQ.

I mean - com'n...$70 bucks for 10 pieces of Angus beef, i.e., meat from a cow/cattle?  I don't even eat the stuff since I was the first-born boy in 50 years to the Kircher Clan (I guess that's the story - haven't bothered to add up the years).  Long sentence coming - So as not to make me choke to death my grandma Zida (Rifenbary) Kircher would not let me eat meat and no one made me eat it as it would choke me to death if I did eat meat which resulted in me having no taste for meat so my diet in the future will consist of pasta, pizza and bread.  Great carb diet when I have to maintain a low weight for the Army!

Where was everyone when I was about two or three years old at the big farm house in PA and I grabbed the hot water heater pipe by the stove and burned the crap out of my right hand where I have scars to this day?  And supposedly my Grandpa Ed Kircher poked the blisters with a pin (that felt good I'm sure) to do away with the blisters but left two scars on the palm of my right hand that the Army is keen to record as "identifying" scars.  You can see the scars on my right hand to the right.  Try getting a palm reading with those babies!

The other significant scar on my body (left forearm still visible today) came from a rope I was hanging onto out of a BlackHawk helicopter in Fort Campbell on the next to last day of Air Assault School when the balay guy who was supposed to be holding my rope tight in case I fall decides to look away for a minute while I come zinging (read ' rope burning') down a rope from a BlackHawk Helicopter 90 feet in the air.  Needless to say the rope burned through my uniform and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  Fortunately, the wound was superficial because the next day I was required to march 12 miles in under three hours with a 40 pound pack on my back to complete the course.  I was not going to fail this course.  Age is only in the head.  I made it thanks to a Ranger Buddy whose name I can't remember who helped me keep pace.  I finished it in 2 hours and 45 minutes.  Pretty good for a 42 year old.

So on our last Sunday in PA, I start to put the gold standard steaks on the grill at Cousin Chrissy's and Kevins and there's Brother Steve in the background as I place each steak on the grill while announcing, "another Trovato kid goes to college, "another Trovato kid goes to college."  Another "ha-ha moment thanks to Steve.  Then he tells me the Finches or Fitches could have given me a better deal.  Well, how about a phone call to let me know of the 'better' place before I go to the houghty toyty (spelling?) meat palace?

Anyway - I digress.  Salernos in Old Forge.  We (I) had to stop one more time while up there to get some 'real' pizza.  Not sure of the guy who waited on us but it was noon and the wife was NOT ready to have any more pizza - even Old Forge Red Pizza.  "Whadda yas want?' Mr. Italian Salerno man says.  She orders a turkey club and me of course (using heynabonics which makes three into tree) "two-tree" cuts of Old Forge Red Pizza with a diet white birch beer soda (note the capital letters out of respect).  "Two or tree?" he asks.  It's a day before we're returning to the Southlands night of no good pizza again so I say, "Tree."  Another guy sitting at the bar by us was having some pizza too when he discovered that he got only tree cuts of red when he wanted four.  "What's the matter - heyna?"  "I don't count around here?"  "Where's my other cut?"   The 60 year old Italian Salerno man says,  "You're so damn fat you don't need a fourth cut."  "Just gimme the cut and shut your face," is the reply.  Mr. Salerno gets the guy his fourth cut then starts to ask my wife where we're from and how is the pizza.  Sandy makes the huge mistake of saying she liked the pizza we had the night before we got while visiting with Aunt Martha, Tammy, Karen and Grant at a restaurant in Montrose, PA.  That opened the flood gates.  "What's the hells the matter with you!?"  Mr Salerno says.   "You're in NEPA and you go get pizza at a restaurant that probably used to be a barn in Montrose, PA?"  She back-tracked fast saying that nothing compared to Old Forge Pizza but that she had been with family that lived up that way who also wished they could get Old Forge Pizza but had to settle for the barn like place in Montrose. 

It didn't work.  "Then why are you ordering a turkey club when you can have what your husband is having?"  She wanted something "other than pizza."  

Another bad move..."Who gets tired of Old Forge Pizza?"  Mr. Italian Salerno man points to Mr. Four cuts across the bar and says "that fat bas**** comes in here every day and has three cuts of red and today he decides to have four."  "He never gets tired of Old Forge pizza."  "Do you fatso?" Mr. Salerno says.  "Shut your fat Italian face," the man kindly replies. 

I love this place.

You can see my "tree" cuts on the left, as well as Sandy's turkey club and chips.