A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the KFC

April 13, 1976

Funny story.

A couple of weeks ago I convinced a car full of coworkers to accompany me into the city to go to Swan Market, a German deli, for lunch. Let's just say German food was waaaayyyy outside some their comfort zones. So far out, in fact, that two of them got a turkey sandwich on rye. IN A DELICIOUS GERMAN DELI. But I digress.

On the way to Swan's we passed by a Kentucky Fried Chicken (or, KFC as it is now known), and I remarked that it had been years since I had eaten KFC, and I would love to have some but it's no longer part of my diet. I love that stuff, I think if I had some now I'd feel pretty sick from all the grease. Me and KFC, we go way back. Back to 1974-5, in fact, when my sister, Mary, had a job there and would bring home leftovers every night after work. YUM, what a treat.

So, ironically I had just talked about eating at KFC when the Facebook page for my hometown paper posted that they were looking for stories and pictures from the day Colonel Sanders visited Massena's KFC in 1976. The tribute was in memory of the KFC building which, after being empty for two years or so after an abrupt closing, was recently demolished to make way for a Tim Horton's donut shop.

Right away I went to the family photo albums (I'm pretty sure the family is regretting giving me all those albums...) where I knew I had seen a picture of that fateful day! I posted the picture, which featured dad, Carol, the Colonel and the then-KFC manager. Lots of folks commented on it and a fun time was had by all. End of conversation. Or so we thought.

THEN, this weekend while visiting Mary we stumbled across a newspaper clipping of the event and--wait for it--an ancient KFC order slip with the Colonel's autograph on the back. Isn't that wild? After years of not thinking about KFC, within a couple of weeks it's all  we can talk about! I posted a picture of the autograph on Facebook especially for my friend Sue to see, to which she promptly replied: OMG!! This is the secret recipe for your retirement investment! That Sue!

BUT WAIT, that's not all! On Monday morning I got a message from a reporter for the Massena paper wanting to interview me about the picture I had posted. I was happy to respond to him to let him know my sister Carol would be the better person to speak with him since she was actually there; I'm just the keeper of the pictures. It turns out Mary was also not there - she was in college at the time. I thought Carol would kill me for referring the reporter to her, but she was actually a really good sport about it. So, Carol has now gained her 15 minutes of fame.

Well, that's the story. It's really the tale about how a silly story about basically nothing really gained legs. Chicken legs, that is. Regular or Extra Crispy?