NOTE: If you would prefer to listen, click here for an audio version of this blog post. When prompted, click the following: Photo 1 Photo 2
NOTE: Click here for Part 8: Ken Caryl Baptist Church; click here for Part 10: Where I worked – Mountain Bell on (1) Evans Ave.; & (2) Zuni St.
I had graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1973 with a Bachelor of Music Education degree. Why I switched from Church Music to Music Education is another story for another day (I shared it in a post several years ago), but suffice it to say that I never really wanted to teach. After graduation, I went back and took some business courses, but that kind of life didn’t really interest me, either. For some strange reason, I decided to apply to law school, scored extremely high on the Law School Admission Test, and entered the University of Oklahoma School of Law in the fall of 1975. That was a disaster from the beginning. It took me three semesters to finally admit that I wasn’t cut out for a career in law.
In the months between my withdrawal from OU Law School in February 1977 and our move to Denver in August, I worked as an assistant manager for a couple of 7-11 stores. In November 1976, just two months after our wedding, Joanna had gotten a job with Mobil Oil in Oklahoma City as a financial analyst. Then came the news, in the summer of 1977, that Mobil was moving its Oklahoma City office to Denver. So we had a decision to make. At this point, we were still living in married student housing on the OU campus in Norman. One Saturday morning, while Joanna was still in bed, and I was making breakfast in the kitchen, I suddenly walked to the door of our bedroom, looked at Joanna and said, holding my hands out as if balancing two scales, “What are we trying to decide? You have a career, I don’t. Oklahoma City . . . Denver. Oklahoma City . . . Denver.” She nodded, and the decision was made. We were heading to Denver, Colorado. Where would I work once we got there? That was the question of the moment.
McDonald’s, 1195 S. Colorado Blvd. (September-December 1977) & 5880 Leetsdale Dr. (December 1977-March 1978) – assistant manager
Soon after we arrived in Denver, I got a job as an assistant manager at the McDonald’s restaurant at 1195 S. Colorado Blvd., one of the busiest thoroughfares in Denver. The manager was being transferred to a new McDonald’s that would soon be opening downtown. One of the assistant managers, Warren Hewitt, was being promoted to manager, and I was to take his place. The other assistant manager was George Davis, who soon became a good friend.
Late Saturday afternoon on my Denver nostalgia tour, I drove to this McDonald’s. It was time for dinner, so I went in and ordered a Big Mac meal to go – I figured if I was going to order anything, I should order a Big Mac in memory of my best friend, Bob Morris. When Bob and I first met in 1974, I quickly discovered that he loved nothing as much as a Big Mac – he would eat them for every meal if he could. As with everything else after almost 50 years, this McDonald’s has changed. It has obviously undergone some construction; it is smaller than it was in my day – and for good reason; it isn’t as busy as it used to be. I was there around 5:30 – what we knew as the “dinner rush” when I worked there – yet there was no line on this Saturday evening. I was the only customer at the register. Competition has obviously taken its toll. When I worked there, there were at least five or six registers across the front. Now there is only one! It was during my tenure that they brought in “newfangled” registers that allowed employees to push a specific button for each individual food item, so we were already getting pretty high-tech in 1977-78. But the registers today are advanced by several generations over those we used back then.
Memories come to mind. One Friday night, a customer walked in and had obviously had too much to drink; he started causing trouble and threatening the employees. George Davis, the other assistant manager on duty, calmly walked over to the fries station where a metal basket of fries was submerged in blazing hot oil, took the handle to draw the basket out, then told the guy to get the hell out if he didn’t want a basketful of hot, greasy french fries in his face. The guy fled. Quick thinking, George.
I also recall the customer service manager for the Denver McDonald’s restaurants. Her name was Donna Kosarek, and she often came around to check on how we were doing, with regard to the company’s QSC – Quality-Service-Cleanliness – mantra. She was all business and was always looking for something wrong, so she could pull a “gotcha” on some poor, unsuspecting employee. I especially remember when she took a few of us employees on a tour of other fast-food restaurants to compare their service with ours at McDonald’s. When we went to a Wendy’s, she purposely spilled a drink just to test the response of the Wendy’s employees. To say she was vicious was an understatement.
Just before Christmas, our manager took a vacation, and George and I were in charge for a week or two. George had been going to school on his off-days, working toward a master’s degree. The Reeds, who owned the McDonald’s franchises in Denver, didn’t encourage that kind of thing, because it meant they would either lose him or have to pay him more.
I was soon transferred to another McDonald’s on Leetsdale Blvd. The manager was a guy named Rick Prasnicki. His wife, Valerie, was in charge of birthday parties for kids, usually dressing in a clown costume. She was very personable; Rick, not so much. One thing I recall about Rick is that whenever I had to call him on the phone, for whatever reason – calling in sick, etc. – the guy never said goodbye. When he was finished, he just hung up the phone, and I was left wondering, “uh, were we through?” Very abrupt, no people skills at all.
Not long after I was transferred to the Leetsdale location, George Davis called to tell me that he had been hauled in for questioning about a money shortage that had occurred at Colorado Blvd. when he and I were managing the restaurant during the manager’s vacation. They accused him of stealing. I knew George’s character too well by then to believe that he would do such a thing. They wound up firing George over this accusation. I thought it suspicious that they had transferred me shortly before questioning George, and that they never asked me to come in for questioning, considering that I had the same access to the money that George had during Warren’s vacation. It became obvious to me that they had fabricated this charge in order to get rid of someone who was trying to better himself.
Realizing there was no security in this job, I started looking for something else. I soon found a job with Mountain Bell and gave my notice. My last day at McDonald’s was March 22, 1978.
The following weekend, Bob came up for a visit. That Saturday, Bob went with Joanna and me to the Idlewild ski resort. All three of us took skiing lessons. Joanna and I fell down repeatedly and got discouraged. Until we moved to Texas in 1987, we never went skiing again. Bob, on the other hand, fell in love with skiing. From then on, he would come up a couple of times during the winter, spend a day or so with us, then head for the slopes for a week.