In January 1968, the Colonel invited then FBI Director J. Between the profiles, biographies, and Sander’s own writing, his life story is quite literally an open book. Perhaps what’s most disappointing about the boring, false inspirational life anecdotes, which aren't limited to this chef, is how readily available the real story often is. All of which is to say, Sanders' life begs to be described, like a Mark Twain character, with many pauses for comic detail - a leisurely style that doesn't mesh with an optimized social media post. He claimed the power of prayer healed his colon polyp. According to a Thought Catalog synopsis of the book, Colonel Sanders was a servant of God, with a nasty mouth and a willingness to be pummel a man with a chair. Though a variation of the event appears, oddly, in the Colonel’s 1974 autobiography, Life as I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin’ Good. The New Yorker piece, and much writing of the time on Sanders, never mentions a kidnapping plot. He was not a billionaire, but he lived in comfort for the remainder of his years. Nearly 60-years-old, he would spend days at a restaurant, peddling his chicken technique, cooking for customers, and often sleeping in the back of his car. That’s when he sold his first restaurant, and began developing the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in earnest. And depending on who you believe, he received his honorary Colonel title sometime in the 1930s or 1950s from the Kentucky governor. Sanders first built an identity on fried chicken while running a service station with his mistress, who following his divorce would become his second wife - a point made in one of Sanders’ autobiographies. Sanders didn’t lose jobs, it would appear, so much as he bored of them. Whitworth recounts how Sanders became a cook as a child in his mother’s regular absence, then shuffled between the life of a farmer, streetcar conductor, soldier, railroad fireman, lawyer, insurance salesman, steamboat operator, secretary, lighting manufacturer, and a number of other jobs, including hotel owner and restaurateur. In 1970, the New Yorker profiled Colonel Sanders - or as author William Whitworth describes him, "a perfectionist in an imperfect world" - still alive and approaching eighty. Many other avenues can be taken to learn the extravagant truth of the Colonel’s life. For example, much of the text appears to be a streamlined version of a story about Colonel Sander’s plot to kidnap his daughter, found on a, and attributed to a Los Angeles Times syndicated article - that oddly doesn’t appear in the paper’s online archive. What the retellings share is an indifference to the truth, a puzzling eagernesses to exchange unbelievable facts for mundane and simplified melodramatic plot. He felt that the Government was saying that he couldn’t provide for himself." A longer version on Facebook, for instance, includes more provocative details like "At age 20 his wife left him and took their baby daughter He failed in an attempt to kidnap his own daughter, and eventually he convinced his wife to return home." and "On the 1st day of retirement he received a cheque from the Government for $105. Says another, "Inspirational."Įach retelling differs, tweaked to appeal to a specific motivation-hungry audience. "Sometimes you have to fail to figure out what works," responds one commenter. At age 88 Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Empire was a billionaire."īeneath the LinkedIn item is a discolored photo of a smiling Colonel Sanders holding a bucket of chicken, his portrait emblazoned onto its red and white cardboard. So he borrowed $87 fried up some chicken using his recipe, went door to door to sell. He sat writing his will, but instead, he wrote what he would have accomplished with his life & thought about how good of a cook he was.
He felt like a failure & decided to commit suicide. He became a cook in a small cafe and convinced his wife to return home. At age 20 his wife left him and took their baby. "At age 5 his Father died," begins the story. I came to it through LinkedIn, my personal junction with the web’s dregs. In the past couple weeks, variations on the tale have materialized in an Osaka Craigslist posting, a YouTube clip designed like one of those Facebook videos you watch without sound while you’re on the toilet, and the Facebook page of former candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Dr. Have you heard the life story of Colonel Sanders? It’s taken root in the muddy internet backwater where only inspirational anecdotes tend to flourish.