Zayda Buddy's Pizza

Phil Myzel, a.k.a. Zayda Buddy, was born a while back in a very poor village in Lithuania where people did not keep birth records, but Zayda figured he was born in April between the years of 1911 and 1913.

Zayda arrived in the United States on the 4th of July in 1921. Negotiations with the U.S. Immigration officers ended in the decision to place his age at 8 years old. After arriving in the U.S., Zayda, along with his his mother, brother and three sisters, took the railway to northern Minnesota. Zayda's father owned a small farmjust outside of Duluth, Minnesota, where he was waiting for his family to arrive after finally saving enough money to get them out of that poor village in Lithuania. Zayda Buddy was now a true American... a Minnesotan.

After years on the farm, Zayda dropped out of high school to sell newspapers on the street for the Duluth News Tribune to bring home extra cash for the family. From there he worked his way up to advertising where he really became Duluth's man about town.

Duluth News Tribune

Our View:Phil Myzel, Duluth's 'Bright Spirit'

Every morning for years, Myzel would have breakfast at the Perkin's Family Restaurant on London Road. A group of friends would stop by "And we'd have a bull session," said Seymore Chez, one of Myzel's many friends. "It was automatic. He would always be there." They would discuss just about anything.

He had a special table and the servers all knew him, Chez said.

Myzel's generosity was legendary. "He would give you the shirt off his back," Children were a special interest. He gave generously and was active in helping create the Scottosh Rite's Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Chez said.

It was hard to believe the gregarious man with the shock of white hair who sang in the choir and blew the ram’s horn during High Holiday services was 95 years old. With an ever-present smile and outstretched hand, Phil Myzel bounced with the energy of a man half his age unil sidelined by a recent automobile accident and finally, his death early Saturday. Accompanyiing that vigor was a smile exuding the warmth of an old friend to everyone he met at the synagogue, or while holding court at his regular table at Perkin's on London Road, or anywhere he went. "He was one of those people who saw the humanity in others and greeted it," Glaser told News Tribune reporter Jane Brissett in yesterday's editions, describing his big heart and "bright spirit." A spirit that will continue to shine, for at least as long as his full and passionate life.