"[...] a nickel commission on each chicken"

From: Reanimation Library

"[…] But by not knowing that Harland David Sanders was an actual man, who lived an actual life, people miss out on more than they might imagine.
     For one thing, the Colonel wasn't just a fast-food baron who represented his company on TV, the way Dave Thomas (a Sanders protégé) later did. Sanders was the living embodiment of what his food supposedly stood for. His white suit wasn't the invention of a marketing committee; he wore it every day and was never seen in public for the last 20 years of his life in anything else. (He had a heavy wool one for winter and a lighter cotton one for summer.)
     He was a failure who got fired from a dozen jobs before starting his restaurant, and then failed at that when he went out of business and found himself broke at the age of 65. He drove around in a Cadillac with his face painted on the side before anybody knew who he was, pleading with the owners of run-down diners to use his recipe and give him a nickel commission on each chicken. He slept in the back of the car and made handshake deals. His first marriage was a difficult one, so he divorced his wife after 39 years. (His second marriage was much happier.)
     He once shot a man in a gun battle, but was never charged as the other guy started it. He was a lawyer who once assaulted his own client in court. He was indeed a Kentucky Colonel, an honorary title given to him by not one but two governors. He was a Rotarian and a Presbyterian, and he deserves to be remembered at least for having a verifiable existence."
— Josh Ozersky, Time
Read more…

"KFC has announced that Colonel Harland Sanders: The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef – written in 1966 and discovered in its archives last November – will be launched on Facebook on 4 June [2012].
     Readers will be able to download the book for free, but only via Facebook: the title will not be sold in book stores or via online booksellers, said the fast food chain. Containing 33 'never-before-seen' recipes, from The Colonel's Special Omelette to Upside-Down Peach Cobbler, the autobiography will provide 'an authentic look into the life of one of the world's legendary entrepreneurs,' said KFC, with 'both the insightful life lessons and the delicious recipes remain[ing] relevant today.'
     It was 1930, and Sanders was 40, when he began cooking for visitors to his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. By 1935 he was made a Kentucky Colonel by the state's governor for contributions to the state's cuisine, and he perfected his 'secret blend of 11 herbs and spices' over the next decade. In 1955 he began developing his chicken franchising business, and in 1964 he sold his interest in the company – which then numbered some 600 KFC franchises in the US and Canada – for $2m. Sanders travelled 250,000 miles a year to visit KFC restaurants around the world until he died in 1980 at the age of 90."
— Alison Flood, The Guardian
Read more…