Tag Archives: McDonald’s

local news

Old friends: priceless

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LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. — There is precisely one reason — or maybe two of them — for my wife and I to visit this suburb of Phoenix.

It would be to get caught up with an old and dear friend and to meet his wife, who instantly became a friend as well.

I’ve known Ed Loos for 55 years. We worked together as high school boys at McDonald’s Hamburgers in Portland, Ore. I left that job in August 1968 to be inducted into the U.S. Army. I came home two years later and lost touch with Ed.

Then I met the girl of my dreams the following January. We got married and we invited Ed to our wedding.

My memory is foggy, but I believe that was the last time we saw Ed. After that glorious day 51 years ago, he went about living his life and we embarked on our own life journey.

Now we have reconnected and I find myself filled with joy at being able to get caught up with all that has transpired in our respective lives. Man, it’s been a hell of a journey for both of us.

I long have believed that most of us have few actual “friends.” Ed Loos has filled that role for me for the past five-plus decades. His wife, Colleen, has eased nicely into that role as well for my bride and me.

Those long-ago days working, laughing and carrying on the way kids have done since the beginning of time came rushing into our memory banks.

I am not sure whether all this is worth sharing. I find myself yearning to break away from the stresses of public policy and the headaches associated with contemporary politics.

So, having done that with this visit with one of my dearest friends on Planet Earth, I simply feel the need to share it here.

Life is so very good.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

business news

Big surprise: ‘We were pioneers’

PORTLAND, Ore. — Surprises can reach out and bite you at any moment … which is why they’re called “surprises,” yes?

I got one today while having lunch with my oldest friend on the planet. It’s not that Dennis is old; it’s that we go back to the seventh grade at Parkrose Heights Junior High School when we first made each other’s acquaintance.

We were 12 years of age.

We would hook up time and again as kids and then we went to work at the same McDonald’s restaurant near our northeast Portland home.

We worked for a gentleman who owned the franchise at that eatery. HIs name was Oliver Lund. He seemed to me — I was 16 when I started working there — to be an old man even then.

Little did I know …

Today at lunch, Dennis presented me with a community newspaper article about that very same Ollie Lund, who just retired — at the age of 88 — from the restaurant business. For 55 years he operated that particular McDonald’s and some others.

Here’s what I learned upon reading that article. Our restaurant was the 117th such McDonald’s ever built in the United States of America. Think about that. One hundred seventeenth!

How many of them are there now? Thousands of them! In the United States and around the world. Thousands, man!

Ollie was among a group of Navy veterans who got together, pooled their money and bought these franchises.

I started working at the McDonald’s in suburban northeast Portland on the day after my 16th birthday, which was in December 1965. My buddy Dennis started working there shortly after that.

This was an amazing discovery today at lunch.

First of all, I was sure that Ollie was 80-something when I worked for him back in the day; then again, when you’re 16 everyone older than, say, 30 looks to be in their 80s.

What has kept Ollie going all these years? It had to be his positive outlook. He was a mentor who became our friend. I would leave for a couple of years after being inducted into the U.S. Army in 1968. I came back to work there after my two years in the Army and, yep, Ollie was still there. I didn’t work there for very long. I re-enrolled in school in late 1970 and got married the following September.

Ollie came to our wedding.

This is a bit timely as well, given that a new movie has just been released about the life and career of Ray Kroc, the founder of what became the McDonald’s chain.

Dennis and I laughed out loud today while catching up. It was Dennis who then reminded me: “We were pioneers.”

Who knew?

I am delighted to know this good man is still among us and is seemingly as vibrant today as he was in the old days.

Wow!

business news, national news

McDonald’s goes through total makeover

mcdonalds-protesters

Message to my sons: Your dad’s McDonald’s is gone.

I just saw this link posted to my Facebook feed this morning. McDonald’s — which once sold burgers for 15 cents apiece and hired only boys — has gone higher-tech than it already had been.

http://toprightnews.com/15-minimum-wage-pushers-devastated-after-mcdonalds-makes-this-bold-move/

This comes from a conservative website that I opposes cities and states lifting the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Oh, the agony of reading this link.

A St. Louis, Mo., McDonald’s is introducing bottom-less French fries, cushy lounge chairs for its customers and kiosks that will take customers’ orders. Fast-food vending machines might be next.

I’m an old man now and I’m starting to sound like my own father who used to recall the old days with some fondness.

McDonald’s is a big part of my life story.

I got hired at a McDonald’s on the corner of Northeast 122nd Avenue and Glisan Street in Portland, Ore., the day before my 16th birthday. It was such a major event in my life that I actually remember the date with as much clarity as I remember my birthday, my wife’s birthday, my wedding day, the births of my sons and my granddaughter and the day I got my draft notice.

It wasn’t a high-tech operation.

I got paid a dollar an hour; we peeled our own potatoes every morning in machine that spun the spuds around a rough-sided drum. Burgers sold for 15 cents, cheeseburgers cost four cents more, milk shakes and soft drinks sold for a quarter. A big day occurred when we grossed $1,000 in sales … for the entire day; today, they take in that kind of fiscal volume in an hour.

What about sex-discrimination laws? Don’t make me laugh.

The owner of the place hired only boys in keeping with corporate policy. We might as well have taken the sign down from the tree fort and hung it on the front door: “No girls allowed!”

I don’t object to the minimum wage increasing to a more livable sum. I am saddened, though, to see the impact these municipal and state laws are having on a venerable American tradition, which would be the fast-food joints that used to employ youngsters such as myself.

I made friends for life working with guys just like myself. I met two of my best friends ever working at the McDonald’s where I started out. One of them became my best man. The other one became my “brother” because we resembled each other as kids and our customers used to think we actually were kin; the hilarious part of that story is that we look like brothers today.

That was the environment we shared as kids working for virtually nothing, hauling 100-pound sacks of spuds up the stairs and sweating over a grill frying burgers by the dozens.

Onward we go to a future that guarantees a “livable minimum wage.” It’s a shame that we have plowed asunder a tradition that allowed many millions of Americans to come of age.

 

local news

But … all I wanted was a burger

burgers

Technology is driving me nuts.

Batty and bonkers, too.

Cell phones are doing more and more. Everyone is in touch 24/7 with everyone else on the planet. It all makes my head spin.

Then came a moment this morning when all I wanted was a fast-food hamburger at a well-known chain of burger joints. I busted out laughing.

I had finished a fascinating session this morning talking to high school juniors about whether they wanted to pursue a career in journalism. The event occurred at the Discovery Center in Amarillo and — just as in previous years — the kids were attentive, articulate and engaged in what my fellow panelists and I were telling them.

I was driving down Soncy Road to one of my part-time jobs. I peeled off the street and stopped at McDonald’s.

I needed a quick bite to eat before I went to work. I walked in. A nice lady greeted me with a “Good morning, sweetheart,” and then pointed me to this enormous electronic touch-screen board where I could order my meal.

Did I want to build my own burger? Did I want small or large fries? Did I want a drink to go with it? Was I going to pay with cash or with a credit card?

I touched the screen to answer all those questions.

My head was spinning. I just wanted to walk to the counter, order my lunch, pay the person and wolf it down before heading off to work.

The high-tech wizardry made me recall when I worked at McDonald’s back in the day. That would be in the mid-1960s, an era before minimum wage; I earned one whole dollar an hour.

Burgers cost 19 cents; cheeseburger cost 29 cents; milk shakes cost a quarter; a fish sandwich cost 29 cents, too;  big burger was the double-meat burger … and I forget how much it cost (might have been 49 cents). We had a short array of soft drinks — Coke, root beer, orange drink — and coffee. That was it.

These days you have to learn a whole new skill set … just to order a burger!

Hey, I like technology as much as the next guy — most of the time.

I just don’t expect to get headaches while ordering a hamburger.