okay, we all remember what happened to kentucky fried chicken when they broke 600 outlets in china back in 2002, right? when their slogan “finger lickin’ good’” was first translated into chinese, it came out as “eat your fingers off.” even as a child, i was always given to spells of deference for the great colonel sanders, facial hair savant that he is… only as a man-child had i begun to sense a darker world, one in which not all corporate information is true…and now, prone to wanton bursts of useless research as i am, i’ve lifted the veil to discover that (gasp) he was not a real colonel…(i’m kinda choked up as i write this)…it was governor ruby laffoon who got so hot about his chicken that he made him an honorary colonel in the state militia….it’s going to take me years to work this out. here’s the skinny:

(oh, and this is the short version, you can read a long arse history at kfc)….”Harland Sanders, Born September 9, 1890, died December 16, 1980 (leukemia btw, not clogged arteries)….first restaurant, Sanders’ Cafe in 1929 in Corbin, Kentucky….made an honorary colonel by the governor of Kentucky in 1935, and by 1964 he had over 600 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants…sold the company in 1964 for $2,000,000, a lifetime salary of $40,000 and a seat on the board of directors…remained an active spokesman until his death.”

…and in case - like me - you ever want to impress the hell out of somebody with colonel sanders knowledge (perhaps on a date, or at one of your support group meetings) here’s some more of his story…all of which is certain to make you cry a river (sigh)…

first: notes on the secret recipe (but be warned, it’s total crap): “Today, security precautions protecting the recipe would make even James Bond proud. One company blends a formulation that represents only part of the recipe. Another spice company blends the remainder. A computer processing system is used to safeguard and standardize the blending of the products, but neither company has the complete recipe. “It boggles the mind just to think of all the procedures and precautions the company takes to protect my recipe,” the Colonel said.”

…and the long story, for you more patient types:

“When the Colonel was six, his father died. His mother was forced to go to work, and young Harland had to take care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. This meant doing much of the family cooking. By the age of seven, he was a master of several regional dishes.At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home near Henryville, Ind., for a job on a farm in Greenwood, Ind. He held a series of jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, Ind., and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six months in Cuba.

After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations. When he was 40, the Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Ky. He didn’t have a restaurant then, but served folks on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station. As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique that is still used today.

Sander’s fame grew. Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state’s cuisine. And in 1939, his establishment was first listed in Duncan Hines’ “Adventures in Good Eating.”

In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 Social Security checks.

Confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted himself to the chicken franchising business that he started in 1952. He traveled across the country by car from restaurant to restaurant, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the reaction was favorable, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that stipulated a payment to him of a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a group of investors including John Y. Brown Jr., who later was governor of Kentucky from 1980 to 1984. The Colonel remained a public spokesman for the company. In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world’s second most recognizable celebrity.

Under the new owners, Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation grew rapidly. It went public on March 17, 1966, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 16, 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc. acquired KFC Corporation on July 8, 1971, for $285 million.

Kentucky Fried Chicken became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when Heublein Inc. was acquired by Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million.

In January 1997, PepsiCo, Inc. announced the spin-off of its quick service restaurants — KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut — into an independent restaurant company, Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc. In May 2002, the company announced it received shareholders’ approval to change it’s corporation name to Yum! Brands, Inc. The company, which owns A&W All-American Food Restaurants, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants, is the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system units with nearly 32,500 in more than 100 countries and territories.

Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC restaurants around the world.

(isn’t that a wicked sad ending? and what the shit - he did handshake deals? and they (the corp PR people) left out the BANKRUPTCY!!…)

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