I’m stuck in a low-grade hotel in Corbin, KY. The coffee tastes like burnt water. But it’s free. So is the surprisingly fast WiFi.
Corbin, I discovered from a roadside sign, is the home of “Colonel” Harlan Sanders and his famous fried chicken. The town makes quite a celebration of the fact.
I love it.
How cool is it that a guy born in 1890 who built a restaurant chain that sells one of the humblest foods imaginable is honored like royalty? Don’t get me wrong, he was a total baller. He was the closest free-markets get to royalty; someone who created tons of wealth by making other people happy.
Most honorifics are reserved for pompous, often murderous asshole politicians. I don’t know anything about the Colonel’s personality or integrity as a man, but I know he sold a ton of tasty, cheap chicken. I prefer monuments to that over anything any politician ever did, every day of the week.
Oh, and I found this to add icing to the Americana cake…apparently someone in real life dressed up like the Colonel and pretended to beat up someone who dressed up like a chicken…and people paid to watch it.
It’s enough to give you chills.
*Double bonus!
I flipped on the hotel TV, and after finally figuring out how to exit the hotel promo channel, stumbled upon the classic film, “The Waterboy”, right at the scene when Adam Sandler’s character screeches like a wild pig and tackles a professor that he calls “Colonel Sanders”. Coincidence, or fate?