McDonald's Restaurants is one of the few real-life businesses I mention in my novels and I give them lip service only to add realism to my stories, not as an endorsement.
Back in 1983 or 1984 — I can't remember the exact year — I wrote a letter to McDonald's Corporation defending their business practices against a public onslaught that, in my opinion, was spearheaded by a handful of opportunistic, avaricious people with lawyers on retainer and competitors trying to hone their own competitive edge by slinging mud. As if that ever works.
Anyway, I felt that the very heart of the American entrepreneurial spirit was under attack. In the subsequent letter I wrote to McDonald's Corporate Office I told them that "McDonald's was as much an American Institution as Sears & Roebuck" and I meant every word of it.
Well, later that year, McDonald's ran a TV commercial featuring veteran actor John Houseman telling the public that McDonald's may very well be "an American Institution". I was flattered but also a little put off by the fact that McDonald's never gave me credit for saying that first. What they did give me were two fifty-cent coupons toward their sandwiches.
I still eat at McDonald's every now and then but I don't write letters of support or praise to any American businesses anymore. If I like what they sell, I just buy their products like everyone else.
Back in 1983 or 1984 — I can't remember the exact year — I wrote a letter to McDonald's Corporation defending their business practices against a public onslaught that, in my opinion, was spearheaded by a handful of opportunistic, avaricious people with lawyers on retainer and competitors trying to hone their own competitive edge by slinging mud. As if that ever works.
Anyway, I felt that the very heart of the American entrepreneurial spirit was under attack. In the subsequent letter I wrote to McDonald's Corporate Office I told them that "McDonald's was as much an American Institution as Sears & Roebuck" and I meant every word of it.
Well, later that year, McDonald's ran a TV commercial featuring veteran actor John Houseman telling the public that McDonald's may very well be "an American Institution". I was flattered but also a little put off by the fact that McDonald's never gave me credit for saying that first. What they did give me were two fifty-cent coupons toward their sandwiches.
I still eat at McDonald's every now and then but I don't write letters of support or praise to any American businesses anymore. If I like what they sell, I just buy their products like everyone else.
