September 9th, Monday | The Colonel of KFC

The date is September 9th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from Tejakula, Bali. 

 

Today is the birthday of Colonel Harland David Sanders, American businessman, founder of KFC.

 

Sanders was born in 1890 in southern Indiana, not far from the Indiana-Kentucky state line. His mother was a devout Christian and it was perhaps her warnings about the evils of drink that led Sanders to be vehemently against alcohol consumption his whole life. (Her preaching against cursing, however, did no good.)

 

Sanders’s father died when he was just five and as the oldest child, he was quickly made a helping hand in the home.  By age seven he was adept in the kitchen.

 

After bouncing around jobs in his teens and twenties and even his thirties, Sanders finally settled down a little bit around age 40 with his family in Kentucky. He already had experience in sales and business which helped served up success in his new restaurant venture. 

 

Sanders’s “Colonel” title is not from any military service - rather, it is a title bestowed on him by the state of Kentucky. In the mid-1930s Sanders received his first “Colonel” for good deeds in his Kentucky community. He donated food, helped in a few midwifing incidents, and volunteered to drive some of his fellow townsfolk to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. 

 

With the success of his local Kentucky restaurant, Kentucky again “Colonel’ed” Sanders and this time Sanders began using the title regularly, particularly as he began to promote his Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe. 

 

For a snarky, well-written article on the life of Colonel Sanders and KFC, see the link in today’s show notes. 

 

Today is the birthday of Mary Hunter Austin, American poet. 

 

She took a special interest in the Native American peoples living in the Mojave Desert. Her poetry generally reflects life in the California expanse and celebrates the wildlife and delicate ecosystem of the area. 

 

Mary Austin was active in the California Water Wars, particularly in Owens Valley where she lived. As Los Angeles extended its reach into surrounding counties for more water to meet its exploding population, the city preyed upon the watershed in Owens Valley. They effectively bullied their way to the water, disrupting the small communities and driving out farmers and residents who were left with few options but to move. 

 

When she found herself on the losing side of the California Water Wars….

Mary Austin relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, joining a community of writers and artists. She produced a fair amount of work there, however it was her home in Santa Fe where she would be the most inspired and productive. Two of her most well known works include a collaboration with Ansel Adams and her collection The Land of Little Rain.

 

 

The Gods of the Saxon 

Mary Hunter Austin 

 

We have set the White Christ forward, we have bid the old gods go, 

We be Christians, Christian peoples, singing psalm tunes staid and slow. 

We have strewn the graven idols, we are bounden to the Lord, 

In hoc signo it is written -- but we prove it with the sword. 

 

For the old gods played us hazards, and they tracked us in their wrath 

By the smoke of sacrifices that we made along our path; 

Saved us to outwit each other; broke us if they listed, then, 

And at best of all their saving they were gods, and we were men. 

 

But the White Christ he is lowly, he hath thorns about his brow, 

He hath sorrowed, he hath suffered, -- Lord, what boots thy sorrow now? 

Seeing that we give our brother to the kite-kind and the crow, 

And the shell-strewn bones to whiten where the shy