Today, I am thankful for those paragons who had the entrepreneurial spirit to keep me satisfied, albeit in moderation.
I have an important confession to share with you. Whenever my wife is travelling and my teenage sons are scattered about, I revel in my self-imposed, solitary confinement. Some folks detest being alone, but I relish the rather rare opportunity I’m afforded to bask in the glory of an empty house. In fact, “I’m loving it.” And, if I am fortunate enough to have my tranquility persist into the early evening hours, I’ll say to myself: ‘Nick, you deserve a break today.’ So, what better gift can I give myself than to partake of my favorite dinner: “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, pickles, onions on a sesame bun.” As you can probably tell by my shameless plug of a corporate icon, I love McDonalds. In fact, I cherish the odd time I can ‘look for the Golden Arches’ and snatch myself a Big Mac and a large fries. I would even contest (with some fervor) that nothing surpasses the tempting aroma of McDonalds’ French fries emanating from a brown bag. In fact, I routinely need to stash the paper sack in the back seat of the car, or, otherwise, I’ll find myself pulling into my driveway with an empty red cardboard box where those tempting potato morsels once resided.
The tale chronicling McDonald’s rise to commercial prominence is worthy of my praise. Back in 1937, two California brothers, Richard (Dick) and Maurice (Mac) McDonalds, bought a small hot dog stand in Monrovia, California, adjacent to a horse racetrack. Although the business prospered when the ponies ran, the McDonalds had few customers in the offseason. So, they moved their nutritional establishment to San Bernardino, California, with the financial backing of a local bank. On this day (May 15) in 1940, McDonald’s opened the new store, selling everything from hotdogs to barbequed pork. After s few years of some financial success, they surveyed what they learned.
First, the top selling item, by far, was hamburgers, which incidentally was easier to assemble than barbequed ham and baked beans. Second, the use of carhop waitresses to service the customers was inefficient and required excess time transferring the hot food to the automobiles. So, in 1948, they reengineered the business model by eliminating all items other than hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes. They also removed all the wait staff, instead mandating customers order and retrieve their meals from a front counter. They added two arches to the ends of the building so that when someone drove down the street, the building’s facade gave the mirage of a large ‘M’. The Golden Arches and the concept of ‘fast food’ we know today was born. With their local success secured, the McDonalds brothers began franchising the business, including their name, menu, and design. A partner, Ray Kroc, joined them in 1955, eventually buying out the McDonalds brothers in 1961. As Kroc’s newly-acquired enterprise spread across the nation, novel ideas were added to the menu, including a 1967 invention known as the Big Mac, which was inspired by a Pittsburgh franchisee. Today, McDonald’s serves over 69 million customers daily in 37,000 outlets in over 100 countries.
Now, I’m not advocating that people eat McDonalds every day. In fact, a 2004 documentary Super Size Me highlights the untoward consequences of one man’s quest to eat McDonalds three times daily for 30 consecutive days. At the end of Morgan Spurlock’s frenzied month-long endeavor, he was a bigger man, but not for the better. He ballooned in terms of size, cholesterol value, and fatty liver content. In fact, in response to the movie, McDonalds discontinued its supersize portions.
Yet, even as a physician, the documentary does not stop me from sneaking an occasional bite from the legendary enterprise. Admittedly, I enjoy the guilty pleasure, but only in moderation. The Greek playwright, Epicurus, once said that one should be “moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.” But, if you take it too far, one should beware of the consequences. In closing, I’d strongly recommended you heed the words of one of my other Greek ancestors, the philosopher Democritus:
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