Everything changed when my twin brother, Terry, and I entered Grade 7 at Bessborough. Suddenly, we had hit the big time! Our ranks swelled with the addition of the graduating Grade 6ers from Rolph Road – new boys and, even better, new girls.
After six years at Bessborough, we had finally reached senior school status; exciting times to be sure. We’d experience several milestones during the next two years – pivotal rites of passage – like our first school dance, our first “mixed” party (and I don’t mean the kind with presents and loot bags), our first unsupervised Friday night at Leaside Gardens, skating with, you know… girls! Could life get any better? We didn’t think so.
Suddenly, we were big shots and, as our confidence grew, we decided we could push the envelope a little and explore other new experiences that were typically off-limits, even for two Grade 7 kids suddenly riding high and ready for anything!
Terry and I suddenly decided our home meal plan was somewhat lacking and we should take matters into our own hands. Our thought was to clandestinely hit a restaurant on Bayview after school one day, without telling our folks, eat like kings (or at least like adults) and scurry home before we were missed. We had been saving our allowance for a good six years (at 15¢ per week, it took that long) and were ready to spend it. Our first trip to a restaurant, by ourselves, spending our own money, without our parents even knowing, was almost as compelling as slow-dancing in the gym on Valentine’s Day! Our plans quickly took shape.
We hadn’t saved enough to eat at The Yeoman Steak House, a fixture on Bayview for years. That was probably just as well given that making a credible phone reservation with our pre-pubescent Mickey Mouse voices might have been a challenge. We realized that a more casual spot would be cheaper, faster and safer. And then it struck us like a lightning bolt – Dante’s Pizza!
Our choice
Dante’s was a small, dark, unassuming pizza joint on the west side of Bayview, just south of Manor Road. It was open in the afternoon with no reservation required – perfect! We told our mom that we wanted to stay after school to play baseball and wouldn’t be home until after 5:00. Check. We mapped out a circuitous route up to Dante’s, even sneaking through the sketchy laneway behind the stores, lest our mom or a neighbour caught sight of us while out running errands (the Leaside neighbourhood watch network in the ’70s was a sophisticated machine). Double-check. In our pockets, we had just over $5 in change that was so heavy we had to hold up our pants throughout our trek to Bayview. Check, check, check.
We arrived undetected and quickly entered Dante’s. Once our eyes adjusted to the dark, we sat down at a table not really sure what to do next. A waiter named Gary approached (clearly Dante was busy), and took our order, but only after confirming that we had enough money to proceed. Our small pizza cost $3.95 so we were good to go.
It was the best pizza we had ever eaten. We thought we had it made, and our excitement meter was leaping into the red. With overflowing confidence, I grabbed a quarter from our remaining funds and swaggered over to the juke box. I messed up the push button programming to the point that, instead of hearing America belt out Horse With No Name, we were serenaded by Tony Bennett singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco – truly embarrassing. The other patrons just shook their heads.
We forced ourselves to finish every single slice and rolled out of Dante’s feeling stuffed but thrilled that we had actually pulled off this covert adult adventure. However, any adult would have realized that a big dinner at home was just half an hour away and might have timed our pizza party more intelligently. Upon arriving home, we had no option but to suck it up and dine again – which we did and somehow survived. Dante’s is long gone now but, for Terry and me, that Leaside after-school memory lives on. And, whenever we hear Tony Bennett’s famous tune, it takes us right back.
