Long ago, before Vatican II, before the FBI targeted Catholics as domestic terrorists, before many of our readers were even born, McDonald’s had a problem. Only they didn’t realize how big of a problem.
That realization would be left to a single franchise owner in Ohio. On January 13, 1959, Lou Groen opened his McDonald’s in Monfort Heights, Ohio. It was the first Golden Arches to appear in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.
You probably didn’t know this, but at that time Catholics represented about 87% of Monfort Heights’ population. And they were good, practicing Catholics. Old-time Catholics. (You know. Toe Blake, Dit Clapper, Eddie Shore. Those guys were the greats!)
Vatican II was still several years away, and Groen noticed something quite discouraging about his new venture. “On Friday, we only took in about $75 a day,” he said.
That was a problem. A big problem.
After researching what the Big Boys chain did, Groen approached McDonald’s owner Ray Kroc (who was very approachable then) and proposed the idea of selling a fish sandwich. The usually astute Kroc did something he rarely did. He made the wrong decision. He Continue Reading “Spaghetti & Tuna Fish”
Tourist Traps to Timeless Landscapes
We’d long left Chicago’s skyline behind for the flatlands. Of course, before the wide-open spaces, we traversed Wisconsin and Minnesota. It’s kind of arbitrary, but somehow poetic, to declare that crossing the Mississippi River truly makes you feel “out West” for the first time.
I-90 crosses the Mississippi on the Wisconsin-Minnesota border immediately south of Lake Onalaska. Yeah, they call it a lake, but it looks like it’s part of the river. Stretching 4 miles across, this is the widest span of the Mississippi River (if you include the Lake).
Oddly, crossing the Mississippi didn’t immediately scream “out West.” Instead, my brain went Continue Reading “Tourist Traps to Timeless Landscapes”