“What’s wrong with us?” Nancy asked Bree when they were back at the clubhouse. “Everybody else is making money.”
Bree was sprawled on the beanbag chair. “We just have to figure out what we’re great at that nobody else is.”
from Nancy Clancy Seeks a Fortune
written by Jane O’Connor
illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser
Harper/HarperCollins, 2016
Although Daddy surprised us kids one time with a Perry Como 45 record and a brand-new hi-fi to spin it on, he was not what anyone would reasonably call spontaneous. He was thoughtful and considerate, which is not always the opposite of spontaneity.
That is to say, what happened next was not typical “Daddy behavior.” He came home from work one day in September, 1960, and piled us all into the car to try out a new restaurant. He must have told Mom or she would have been in the middle of serving a home-cooked meal as he pulled in at 6:00.
It was not only Daddy’s new idea about dinner, it was a whole new concept in eating. Fast Food. McDonald’s, it was. After the Golden Arches were added, but before Ronald made his marketing appearance. So off we all went for the 30 minute drive.
There was only one hitch. Mom didn’t like ketchup. Her burger had to be special-ordered which took longer. The point was fast, and Mom’s burger was not fast. “But it’s fresh,” she never failed to mention. And maybe it was.
Okay, two hitches. Daddy liked to keep his car clean. We did not eat in his car. Indoor seating was not a wide-spread McDonald’s “thing” until 1968, so we ate at a picnic table in front of the building.
The first drive-thru was added in 1975. When a decline in sales (prompted by an Army rule stating that soldiers had to stay in their cars or on base while wearing fatigues) an enterprising franchisee designed a sliding drive-up window. The idea caught on fast. A drive-thru in the Oklahoma City restaurant netted a 40% increase in sales.
Between the popularity of two-car families and people spending more time in their cars, the fast food business grew, well, fast.
To the detriment of our health, we Americans are the #1 consumers of fast food in the world at an average of 18 meals per month. According to All About Burgers, “[t]he average American consumes about 3 burgers per week. McDonald’s serves around 75 million burgers daily, which accounts for a significant portion of the 50 billion burgers eaten each year in America.”
Now backtrack to 1954. Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman, approached the McDonald’s brothers, who were running a successful BBQ joint in California. He brought his Multimixer and a full load of energy, and sold them not only the Multimixer, but himself, as well.
Kroc became their franchise agent in 1955 and opened his own McDonald’s, the first one east of the Mississippi River, in 1955, too.
In 1961, the McDonald brothers sold their company to Kroc for $2.7 million.
Ray kept the name, but focused on uniformity and streamlined the menu. He standardized all procedures for every task from product (McDonald’s only uses Russet Burbank potatoes from Idaho for their fries, everywhere in the world) to prepping, cooking, serving, and cleaning up.
When he died in 1984, Ray Kroc left his $500 million fortune to his wife, Joan. By the time of her own death in 2003, she had grown the fortune to $3 billion.
And she was a philanthropist’s philanthropist.
Over $200 million went to NPR who set up the Joan B. Kroc Legacy Society to manage the largest bequest in public radio history.
The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies located on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, supports about 400 colleges and universities around the world that offer peace study programs of one kind or another. From its website “[p]eace studies [is a recognized discipline which] has a literature (books and journals), an active base of scholars, an established curriculum, and a pedagogical tradition that includes classroom teaching, experiential learning, internships, and international study…Kroc Institute faculty are experts in a variety of disciplines and can speak engagingly on diverse topics related to conflict, violence and strategic peacebuilding efforts.”
The Salvation Army was Joan’s largest beneficiary, almost half of her fortune. In 2023, twenty years after her death, “26 grand, state-of-the-art Kroc centers have opened” throughout the US and our territories. AP News reports “1.2 million people belong to Kroc fitness centers, and over 3 million people annually are served through a wide variety of other programs, including job training, theatrical performances, and afterschool care.”
While the McDonald’s Corporation does not continue to support Joan’s philanthropic agencies directly, and Franchisees are not obliged to contribute to them, either, Joan’s legacy includes not only the funds she donated, but her example of “giving big” as a lesson to all of us.
The McDonald's Corporation supports Animal Welfare, Climate Action, Eliminating Deforestation, Providing Sustainable Packaging, and “reducing by 90%” the amount of “conventional virgin plastic” in their Happy Meal toys. (info from McDonald’s Corporation website here and here.)
All that “giving back” makes me feel good about McDonald’s Corporation’s leadership role in causes I also believe in. But I still won’t buy their food. Well, maybe a milkshake now and then.
I just finished reading When Tomorrow Burns by Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers/Random House Children’s Books, 2026), a story of three friends who found a book of prophecies. Told in alternating points of view, including a tree, the friends grow apart, make bad decisions, and live with the consequences that ultimately bring new understanding of themselves and reconnection to each other. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and give yourself a break
today. You deserve it!)
Bree was sprawled on the beanbag chair. “We just have to figure out what we’re great at that nobody else is.”
from Nancy Clancy Seeks a Fortune
written by Jane O’Connor
illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser
Harper/HarperCollins, 2016
Although Daddy surprised us kids one time with a Perry Como 45 record and a brand-new hi-fi to spin it on, he was not what anyone would reasonably call spontaneous. He was thoughtful and considerate, which is not always the opposite of spontaneity.
That is to say, what happened next was not typical “Daddy behavior.” He came home from work one day in September, 1960, and piled us all into the car to try out a new restaurant. He must have told Mom or she would have been in the middle of serving a home-cooked meal as he pulled in at 6:00.
It was not only Daddy’s new idea about dinner, it was a whole new concept in eating. Fast Food. McDonald’s, it was. After the Golden Arches were added, but before Ronald made his marketing appearance. So off we all went for the 30 minute drive.
There was only one hitch. Mom didn’t like ketchup. Her burger had to be special-ordered which took longer. The point was fast, and Mom’s burger was not fast. “But it’s fresh,” she never failed to mention. And maybe it was.
Okay, two hitches. Daddy liked to keep his car clean. We did not eat in his car. Indoor seating was not a wide-spread McDonald’s “thing” until 1968, so we ate at a picnic table in front of the building.
The first drive-thru was added in 1975. When a decline in sales (prompted by an Army rule stating that soldiers had to stay in their cars or on base while wearing fatigues) an enterprising franchisee designed a sliding drive-up window. The idea caught on fast. A drive-thru in the Oklahoma City restaurant netted a 40% increase in sales.
Between the popularity of two-car families and people spending more time in their cars, the fast food business grew, well, fast.
To the detriment of our health, we Americans are the #1 consumers of fast food in the world at an average of 18 meals per month. According to All About Burgers, “[t]he average American consumes about 3 burgers per week. McDonald’s serves around 75 million burgers daily, which accounts for a significant portion of the 50 billion burgers eaten each year in America.”
Now backtrack to 1954. Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman, approached the McDonald’s brothers, who were running a successful BBQ joint in California. He brought his Multimixer and a full load of energy, and sold them not only the Multimixer, but himself, as well.
Kroc became their franchise agent in 1955 and opened his own McDonald’s, the first one east of the Mississippi River, in 1955, too.
In 1961, the McDonald brothers sold their company to Kroc for $2.7 million.
Ray kept the name, but focused on uniformity and streamlined the menu. He standardized all procedures for every task from product (McDonald’s only uses Russet Burbank potatoes from Idaho for their fries, everywhere in the world) to prepping, cooking, serving, and cleaning up.
When he died in 1984, Ray Kroc left his $500 million fortune to his wife, Joan. By the time of her own death in 2003, she had grown the fortune to $3 billion.
And she was a philanthropist’s philanthropist.
Over $200 million went to NPR who set up the Joan B. Kroc Legacy Society to manage the largest bequest in public radio history.
The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies located on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, supports about 400 colleges and universities around the world that offer peace study programs of one kind or another. From its website “[p]eace studies [is a recognized discipline which] has a literature (books and journals), an active base of scholars, an established curriculum, and a pedagogical tradition that includes classroom teaching, experiential learning, internships, and international study…Kroc Institute faculty are experts in a variety of disciplines and can speak engagingly on diverse topics related to conflict, violence and strategic peacebuilding efforts.”
The Salvation Army was Joan’s largest beneficiary, almost half of her fortune. In 2023, twenty years after her death, “26 grand, state-of-the-art Kroc centers have opened” throughout the US and our territories. AP News reports “1.2 million people belong to Kroc fitness centers, and over 3 million people annually are served through a wide variety of other programs, including job training, theatrical performances, and afterschool care.”
While the McDonald’s Corporation does not continue to support Joan’s philanthropic agencies directly, and Franchisees are not obliged to contribute to them, either, Joan’s legacy includes not only the funds she donated, but her example of “giving big” as a lesson to all of us.
The McDonald's Corporation supports Animal Welfare, Climate Action, Eliminating Deforestation, Providing Sustainable Packaging, and “reducing by 90%” the amount of “conventional virgin plastic” in their Happy Meal toys. (info from McDonald’s Corporation website here and here.)
All that “giving back” makes me feel good about McDonald’s Corporation’s leadership role in causes I also believe in. But I still won’t buy their food. Well, maybe a milkshake now and then.
I just finished reading When Tomorrow Burns by Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers/Random House Children’s Books, 2026), a story of three friends who found a book of prophecies. Told in alternating points of view, including a tree, the friends grow apart, make bad decisions, and live with the consequences that ultimately bring new understanding of themselves and reconnection to each other. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and give yourself a break
today. You deserve it!)
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