Freddogg Off The Chain

I grew up in hoagie heaven in Philadelphia not some stupid sub or hero or grinder or calzone or stromboli neighborhood! And if you want to talk cheese steaks let me be the first native to tell you that Philly cheese steaks are mostly too chopped up and watery, are sometimes doused with clumpy cheese whiz and don’t even ask for lettuce, tomato and mayo because on the first bite all that shit will be lying on the curb.

In my house this was a formal dinner. “Tonight we are having hoagies, ”my mother would say. “Tommy will go get them and David it’s your turn to clean up the wrappers. Don’t let Luigi nub until everyone is finished.” Luigi was the family beagle, some low slung, fat assed, voyeuristic stray vulture, who could tell some stories because like all family dogs he belonged to the Privates Club, know what I’m saying?”

I remember the first day in school history at Our Lady of Grace grammar school that hoagies were served for lunch. Even the poor assed white trash people brought 75 cents because this was a monumental and festive occasion. I was a Cape Cod Kid thanks to government checks and I never brought a Bond Bread inside a paper bag peanut butter and fluff sandwich to school in my life. No sir, I was living high on the hoagie ladder of social stratification.

Any hoagie taste better if someone else makes it because if you make it yourself with a half pound each of two different meats, a blanket of white American cheese and table spoons of mayo and an entire onion all jammed into a Amoroso roll you are just instantly spoiled and become like the depressed rich bastard from up on the hill.

Hundreds of hoagies handed out to repressed Catholic boys can only bring out inappropriate hoagie hand humor which led to whack attacks by frustrated nuns who had their own sexual hang-ups and it got crazy. I stayed below the fray snagging nubs like Luigi under the table and once under the tables I noticed things that were hoagie like but not actual hoagies for kielbasa’s sake.

I’m still not comfortable eating lunch at a working class sub shop unless all the pipe fitters have both hands on the table.

Peace Freddogg