Sunday Night With John: The Breakfast Pizza Club

It was a two-sentence text message making me chuckle and boosted my excitement for the weekend. My band of goof balls friends from college embarked on our yearly trek to Eldora, Iowa for the camping trip. In our thirteen years of the event the group dwindled to 15 dedicated people who set aside a whole weekend to bathe (tube float) in the waters of the Iowa River, bask in the glow of a camp fire as we reconnect, and re-kindle the embers of our friendships that were lit when we were mere twenty something punks.

As I looked at the message again before I replied to my eager friends, it made me pause for a moment and contemplate the truth behind the text made in jest. The text message joked about the roles we play at the river: the recluse, the academic, the super fan, and the tree hugger.  The text prompted the reply, “What is this? The Breakfast Pizza Club,” a pun on the famous 80s movie The Breakfast Club and the fact the Rock Stop in Steam Boat Rock, Iowa hosts us every Saturday morning of our trip with the best breakfast pizza in the world.  The 80’s movie was all about how we stereotype people into roles: the jock, the bad boy, the nerd, and the goodie-to-shoes. By the end of the movie we realize how these types of stereotypes box people into a singular role and no one fills a singular role in their own life.

Every year I make this trek I’m reminded of the Nelson Mandala saying, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” As we spent the weekend re-hashing old jokes from years past, catching up on the finer details on our lives, and carving out a number of new funny memories (3pack Jim) we no longer fit into a cheesy 80s movie one-dimensional roles. We are husbands, we are fathers, and we are building our careers, and yes there are still pieces of the tree hugger, the recluse, the super fan, and the academic.

We all have grown and grown the correct way, we are all fulfilling our potential in different ways and becoming good men. As we rounded the familiar bend signaling the last ten minutes of our float my tube broke off from the main group. I looked back at my unchanged view and knew all the ways I have altered were for the better. When the Breakfast Club movie ended, they all went their separate ways, just as we did on Sunday morning, the only different is The Breakfast Pizza Club will reconvene in a year. I will be reminded of my past, present, and future and be happy it includes the tree hugger, the academic, the super fan, the recluse and what ever new roles we evolve into because the last 13 years have revealed the good side of my personality won. One of the biggest reason I changed for the better was because the support of the Breakfast Pizza Club and I know they won’t “forget about me.”