Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped (1975)

People loved looking into Three Piece.   I could have spend an hour just watching everyone interact with the sculpture.  It was located off the beaten path in a corner of the botanical garden.  Thus, no foul-mouthed pre-K gangsters!

J. R. Simplot died last week.  He was 99.  I had never heard of him until I read his obituary.  He was one of the richest people in America because his country perfected the frozen french fry back in the 1960s.  He then made a deal with Ray Kroc to be the frozen fry supplier to McDonald's.  The description of how he got started in business is pretty amazing.  He left home at 14 after his father refused to let him go to a basketball game. Then...

His mother gave him $20 in gold coins, and he moved into a $1-a-night hotel in a nearby town. There were teachers living in the hotel who were being paid in interest-bearing scrip. Jack bought them at 50 cents on the dollar and sold them to a bank for 90 cents on the dollar.

He used this profit to buy a rifle, an old truck and either 600 or 700 hogs (accounts vary) at $1 a head. He used the rifle to shoot wild horses, which — after stripping the hides for future sale at $2 each — he mixed with potatoes and cooked on sagebrush-fueled flames. The hogs ate the result. When he sold the fattened pigs, Mr. Simplot made more than $7,000.

That gave him capital to buy farm machinery and six horses and become a potato farmer...

To honor him we should all eat McDonald's french fries.

Comments

[Melissa]

That is a wild story! I'd never heard of him either.

[Marie C.]

That sounds more like the 1800s than the 1900s.

[littlejodie]

Gives new meaning to the word "entrepreneur."

[Joe]

It's better than the guy who traded up a paper clip for a house.

[Jessica]

These shots are so poetic! Congrats on the captures.

[Joe]

Thanks!