RALEIGH -- After all the sniping, the skunk jokes, the tea party bashing, the Obama conspiracies, the Art Pope conspiracies, the strip club explanations and gobs of campaign cash, the furious race for District 3 ended on a note of cheese-coated harmony.
Both candidates for the final, crucial slot on the Wake County school board held their wrap-up parties at Milton's Pizza - a victory bash for Democrat Kevin Hill at the Six Forks Road location and a chin-up defeat vigil for Republican Heather Losurdo at New Falls of Neuse Road.
Seldom have twooffice-seekers clashed so mightily, differed so strenuously or given voters a starker choice.
Yet when the shelling stopped, they both found solace in a Milton's slice, which, by the way, is available gluten-free.
"They can at least agree on pizza," said owner Jeff Janik with a sigh.
Locally owned, Milton's can boast of customer loyalty that the average Papa John's can only envy.
Hill, for instance, has dined there for more than two decades and once tore up the lanes as part of the Milton's bowling team.
Perhaps it's Janik's own résumé that breeds such devotion. He started out washing dishes for one Milton Papadopolous in Chesapeake, Va., earning $1.10 an hour in 1976. His experience there was so formative, so instructive in the ways of customer service, that when Janik and wife Lindy opened their own Raleigh pizzeria in 1983, they named it for the original Milton.
Still, politics makes a volatile pizza topping. Luckily for Janik, the Hill people wanted to keep to the south on Six Forks, while the Losurdo camp staked out the north.
"It's a bit of a sticky wicket," said Janik, who lives in Franklin County and backed neither candidate politically. "I didn't have to intervene at all. I didn't talk to either one about the other."
Even being even-handed, Milton's saw some partisan mixed in with its parmesan.
"Hmm ... I used to like going to Milton's, no more," wrote one poster on the News & Observer's WakeEd blog. "If the ownership can't pick a side, I won't bother picking their restaurant."
But this is short-sighted.
Let us celebrate what we have in common, not what divides us. In pizza, surely, there is hope.
So everyone join me in a unity slice, regardless of your feelings about the balance of power on the school board, or the new reassignment plan.
Before you do, you'll need to register as a pizza-eater. Bring your immunization records and your birth certificate to your local pizza parlor before Nov. 28. Then you'll need to find your base pizza parlor choices. They should be ranked in order of proximity. Most people are able to get either their first or second choice, so don't worry, especially if you've been assigned to a parlor with low health department ratings.
You might also want to try the magnet pizza parlor option.
First, you'll need to schedule a tour, and then you'll need to apply to the magnet parlor of your choice between Dec. 5-19. Keep in mind that these pizza parlors are very popular, especially the mushroom magnet, and that priority seating goes to pizza-eaters whose brothers and sisters already eat there.
Don't even ask about busing.
