The Real Colonel Sanders

Over on HerKentucky's Facebook page today, we've been talking about Colonel Sanders.

I feel really strongly about this. Colonel Sanders was an actual person. From recent history. Every revamp just comes...

Posted by HerKentucky on Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Well, we've been talking about KFC's latest incarnations of Colonel Sanders.

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You've probably seen those KFC ads with Darrell Hammond. They were pretty awful. And, now, he's been replaced by Norm MacDonald.

Howdy, folks. It’s me, the REAL Colonel Sanders, back again, but for real this time. pic.twitter.com/Zj30LPXmXB

— KFC (@kfc) August 17, 2015

I'm not going to lie, I find the whole thing VERY creepy. Harland Sanders was a real, live person. He was born in Clark County Indiana in 1890. He lied about his age to join the U.S. Army. He worked on railroads and ferry boats and even practiced law for a while, until he got into a courtroom brawl with a client. Eventually, he settled in Corbin, KY, where he ran a Shell Gas Station and perfected his fried chicken recipe.

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Of course, there are a whole lot of people in Southeastern Kentucky who make really good fried chicken. The reason that Colonel Sanders' image has graced a million paper chicken buckets instead of any of our Appalachian grandmothers is that he was a master of marketing. He embraced the iconic image of a Southern gentleman --- a Kentucky Colonel -- in a white suit and a string tie. He insisted on being called Colonel. And the image remained with KFC long after Sanders sold his operations, and even after he passed. 

Somehow, the stylized cartoon we've all seen a million times on KFC's logo seems okay. These salt and pepper shakers from Louisville Stoneware seem kind of adorable.

But hiring two guys -- irreverent comedians and non-Southerners at that -- to play someone who was alive during many Kentuckians' lifetime just seems disrespectful and in poor, poor taste. Colonel Sanders was a shrewd businessman, a first-class marketer, possibly a terrible lawyer, and a fine cook. But he was also an actual living person whose legacy deserves a little more than KFC is providing him.

Five Things That Kind of (Maybe a Little) Connect Tom Cruise to Kentucky

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, NY. But, anybody who's lived in Kentucky any time knows that, before he became the superstar actor Tom Cruise, he spent some time around here. There was a period in the '90s where it felt like every Louisville native I met had an older brother who'd attended high school with Tommy Mapother. In the spirit of exceptionally large classes at St. X and my general belief that I can put a Kentucky spin on just about anything, here are five factoids that connect Birthday Boy Tom Cruise to Kentucky.

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Image via Kentucky for Kentucky.

• The same model of U.S. Navy "Tomcat" fighter plane that Cruise's character Maverick flew in Top Gun is on display at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, located beside the airport. So, the next time you're catching a cheap flight out of the LEX, you can take a photo of that plane, sing the chorus of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and pour a little out for Goose before you board. Everybody knows you don't need to be early for a flight out of Lexington, and you're basically commemorating a seminal piece of Kentucky history.
• Even if it was only for a brief time, Tom Cruise attended Louisville's St. Xavier High School. If you've lived in Louisville (or even visited for more than 5 minutes), you know that going to St. X is The Most Louisville Thing Ever. There you go: Tom's a Louivillian.
• Tom's grandfather, Thomas Cruise Mapother Jr, founded the Louisville bankruptcy law firm Mapother & Mapother. So, if you went to law school and hated studying the bankruptcy code, or even if you've ever gotten a collection letter from Mapother, you're basically a cousin to Tom, right?
• Speaking of cousins, Tom's cousin and Mission Impossible 2 co-star William Mapother is also an actor, and a full-on Louisville native. 
• Before matriculating at St. X, Tom also attended St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati, a city which everyone knows is just an extension of the Northern Kentucky Metro Area.
  
  So, there you go. Tom Cruise's Kentucky roots run deep. 

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Happy birthday, Tom, you Crazy Kentuckian!!

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{Lest you doubt the veracity of these claims, please note that much of this article was influenced by Kentucky for Kentucky's blog post Tom Cruise Briefly Attended High School in Louisville," which, in turn, references "multiple biographical sources gleaned from the Internet in a great haste.' Never let it be said that the HerKentucky girls don't do their research.}