In the 1930's while the USA was in a great depression, I was driving on U.S. Route 25 down from Akron, trying to find work, and I stopped one evening in Corbin to load up on gas. A young man there pumped it for me and he knew just about everything about which roads was open, and especially the condition of the roads going from 25E down through the Smoky Mountains to Asheville, a great town, incidentally, and 25W through Knoxville down to Atlanta. Told me he drove those routes himself every so often to see if they were improved. This was valuable information to me, and I thanked him for it.

He had a little place to eat next to the gas station, just a one-room shed with a dining room table in the middle of it where everybody sat, that maybe fitted 15 people, but he got puffed-up and called it a restaurant. Anyway, the food he served there was real good, like maybe you'd get from a fat aunt, lots of potatoes with nice thick gravy poured all over 'em, plenty of crackling's, chicken what had all kinds of spices and herbs they'd be dipped into before frying, big, soft, heavy biscuits that got your fingers greasy just handling them, bowls of pole beans, and cobbed corn plucked right out of the field, so sweet you'd taste the sun in those kernels, plus he wasn't the type of man who got shy about butter. It felt like Sunday dinner no matter what day it was you pulled in there.

Well, after a while I'd hit that little place every time I was on the highway passing through Corbin, and I want to tell you I never met a woman who cooked as good as he did.

You know who that man was?

That was Colonel Harland Sanders himself, the one and only, and I got to sample his cooking back when he did it himself, long before some kind of corporation took over. And we all know how it is now, but back then he was always carrying out a tub of chicken to a table full of tired truck drivers, and farmers so desperate they were ready to plant spaghetti, and whoever else fell off the road, offering them as many repeats of the meal as they wanted, wearing all white with an undershirt underneath. I used to watch him haul that big deep tub from chair to chair, wondering how many chickens he had to chase to get so many drumsticks in there (the drumstick's the best part of the chicken, just like Friday's the best part of the week).

I was on the road a lot in those days, with a lot of miles between jobs, and many days behind the wheel sunup to way past sundown, staring at the yellow lines, so when I got out of my truck I wasn't one to talk a whole lot. But the Colonel, maybe he sensed how far I was from home, and how often, and after me catching him just quietly watching me a couple of times from the far corner while I ate, he started speaking to me each time I stopped by, took to inviting me out back after my meal to listen to the crickets while we sat side by side in folding chairs, drawing me out to where I'd talk some about my concerns. And every time after we talked, he'd give me encouragement to keep on keeping on, that one of these sunny days I was gonna find what I needed on that long road.

And catch me if that wasn't the truth he kept preaching to me. In the little town of Idaho Falls, in Idaho, I came up against the nicest girl I ever met, she was a shellac gal for the local stationery store, and it was five visits before I got up the voice to even do more than just hand her my money, with the red sweat popping out of the top of my head, but after that we got to talking, and three years later I was able to call her my wife.

Years went by and I sired eight children with Dorothy, who's up in Heaven now along with two of my sons, one who died in Vietnam and it tears my heart to pieces to think about him dying over there, nobody speaking English around him, and another that died with a needle in his arm. I live in a little mobile home right now, and I like it real nice. Once in a while I drive over to the local Kentucky Fried Chicken, go through the Drive-Through, and buy a two-piece meal from kids who want to joke around with each other more than they want to give me chicken for my money.

But that's OK with me, because I was there at the beginning, I knew him when his hair was still dark, and I still remember him all full of himself, a thousand big plans in his head, turning to me in his chair and even wagging a finger at me, saying, "You wanna do something, Beak? The Good Lord says, then go do it. That's why I gave you the world."

I spent a life drinking water and milk, and I saw all kinds of men get green with demons. God Bless you, Colonel Sanders. You set me on the straight course. Just like a hundred other boys back then, crying against their steering wheel, trying to be Daddy.

If you want to e-mail me, you feel free to do so. You can get a hold of me at beakmcdonald@hotmail.com. I'll write you back.

I guess I better start off with the Colonel Sanders Museum, which tries to recreate what his restaurant in Corbin looked like back then. I never been to it since it was turned into a museum, so I don't know how accurate it is. I figure, though, it's probably not too accurate.

This is the official KFC webpage. They make it look bright and cheerful. It wasn't that way back than. You may not know this, but after the Colonel sold his restaurants to a corporation, they changed the recipe. Made it cheaper for them to cook it, because they no longer pressure-cooked the chicken first. Which means the chicken didn't have that juiciness to it anymore when you bit into it. People stayed away in droves, so finally they had to ask the Colonel to come on TV in all these commercials saying the corporation knows it made a mistake, and it's going back to the original recipe now. That's not the first time a corporation's done something like that.

When I want a change from the chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken, I go to Popeyes. They're half a block farther than the KFC place they got here in town. The mashed potatoes are better, and they've got the best red beans and rice in the world, with a real good smoky flavor to them.

I don't always eat chicken, of course. Sometimes, I like to stop by McDonalds for a change. I usually order a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Either one makes a nice dinner. I'd prefer getting the Filet O' Fish, it has a nice tartar sauce that comes with it, but they make you wait too long for that one.

Since I have my own webpage, I might as well plug the webpage of a fellow citizen from Idaho Falls, Arnie Maddox. He's all grown up now, living in Texas with his twelve year-old daughter Cindy. I knew his daddy really well. "Want some lasagna, Arnie?" That was a long time ago.