“Run, Children, Run!”

Proof positive that they’re posting absolutely everything online these days I recently found a copy of Ronald McDonald — Adventures In Scouting, a nine page comic book from the early 1970s. This is significant (probably only to me) because I’ve long lost my copy which was probably my first comic book that I didn’t buy so much as earn.

It was the 70′s, popular culture had glommed onto ecology and the Scouts, having recently reinvented themselves to appear more ‘hip’, latched likewise, as did McDonald’s. Which is how I ended up dragging a cart full of bundled old newspapers, partially uphill, across cracked and uneven pavement, through a medium bad neighborhood, to my neighbor’s nearest participating McDonald’s. In return I received a copy of the comic — plus a complimentary hamburger.

At the time I considered this to be a more or less equitable exchange. OK, sure, even at the time I didn’t know why we couldn’t have just loaded the newspapers into a truck, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been very “Scouting”. And you have to understand at the time McDonald’s actually had a certain cache; believe it or not, once upon a time most middle class kids (at least none of the ones I knew) didn’t eat ‘fast food’ on a regular basis.

As you can see for yourself it is a pretty bad comic book, though worth reading if only for the above nightmarish sequence where a frowning Ronald (“remember kids, when you do bad things you make Ronald McDonald frown”) terrifies the living hell out of a bunch of kids. Plus, it’s a reminder that once upon a time Ronald actually rode a giant flying hamburger.

For the record I endorse neither the Boy Scouts of America or the McDonald’s Corporation*.

*For the record I was a Scout for about two years. I joined out of a desperate need to belong and a genuine admiration for the ideals the organization stood for. Of course they also provided me with my first real opportunity to experience bitter disappointment when people in authority didn’t live up to their ideals.

I know it’s hip to hate McDonald’s and while I would never eat actual eat there they do have their uses. I know there are exceptions but for the most part they are uniformly clean, decent, safe places to loiter and the higher you go up the socio-economic ladder the nicer they are. Flat screen TV’s, newspapers, free internet, hell, I’ve been to a couple that have actually had fireplaces.

You can’t beat their free refills and if you actually have to eat something I’ve found that their salad option is entirely edible - and their fruit smoothies (which actually contain fruit) are actually pretty good.