Month: July 2024

By David G Firestone

For the last week of my vacation, I will use an original script that hasn’t been used yet. This is a tough one, so feel free to click off if it gets to be too much.

So, as I’ve mentioned, I find lost media to be a bit of an interesting subject. I watch a few YouTube channels that discuss lost media. One of them, blame it on George, alerted me to this story. I went to lostmediawiki.com, link in the description, which has a summation of the story. Before we get into it, I have to give a trigger warning: If you are easily grossed out, or have a sensitive stomach, click off, I won’t blame you.

OK, ready? Here we go.

The ill-fated building is located at 3900 Hemphill Street in Fort Worth, Texas. IThe building itself already had a bit of a curse on it. It was previously home to a Danals Food Store. On May 29th, 1994, 29th, a manager at the Danal’s, was held up and forced into the office to open the safe. The young manager, 18 year-old Eduardo Lopez was shot in the head and his body was later found in a storage freezer. Lopez’s murder remains a cold case almost 30 years later.

The Mexia Supermarket came into existence when something called Advance Investment Corp got a $975,000 business loan from Comercia Bank-Texas. It was meant to support the low-income area the store was located in.

Alas, desptie the owner’s best efforts, Mexia Supermarket was not profitable, and Advance Investment Corp faced $1.14 million owed to various creditors. As such, they defaulted on their payments in June of 1999. It should be noted that from everything I’vre gathered in my research, Mexia doesn’t appear to be fraudulently run, just badly run.

Advance Investment Corp filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection was filed on September 28th, 1999. Steven Strange, a Fort Worth attorney represented Advance Investment as Mexia’s ownership transferred to a bankruptcy trustee. Comercia Bank became the building’s lien holder. Two weeks before the bankruptcy proceedings began, the Fort Worth Health Department removed Mexia from its list of active food establishments.

Before we continue, if it sounds like I am omitting key dates and information, I am. However, there are reasons for this, which we will discuss soon.

After Mexia closed, the citizens living around the closed store began complaining of terrible odors, and many were getting sick. Fort Worth tracked the odors to Mexia, and asked Comerica Bank to clean it up. While Comerica tried to find a suitable company, it quickly became apparent that this was worse than anybody could imagine.

You see, when the owners of Mexia closed the store, they literally closed and locked the doors. The store’s stock was still there however, and included meat, fish, produce, refrigerated and frozen foods, dairy, and other perishables. The electricity was cut not long thereafter.

This took place in July, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Once the power was cut, all hell broke loose. The perishables spoiled, flies, and vermin flocked to the store. I’ll spare you the details, since I really don’t want to make you sick. This went unchecked for THREE MONTHS until the end of October, 1999. That, by itself would be bad, but the location of the store didn’t help. Why?

Well, Here are the average temps in Fort Worth during the period between the closing sometime in July, and when the clean up was completed at the end of November, courtesy of weatherunderground.com:

*JUL 90.96 degrees F
*AUG 94.16 degrees F
*SEP 85.78 degrees F
*OCT 80.42 degrees F
*NOV 69.71 degrees F

The average for the time period is 84.21 degrees F

When the time came for the clean up, it quickly became clear this was a true bio-hazard situation. Teams of workers from Garner Environmental Services had to manually remove and decontaminate every millimeter of the 36,000-square-foot building. The windows were boarded up, and workers in hazmat suits took on this task, which lasted from November 16 to the 30th, and cost around $100,000. These workers had to be decontaminated themselves every time they left the building. Even with the extensive clean up, there were reports of foul odor until December 9th.

If you are wondering why the building wasn’t simply burned down, there actually is a reason for that. The possibility was considered, but this would not only allow some of the vermin to flee and infest other homes, but would also spread contaminants around a larger area.

*Fort Worth’s director of environmental management, Brian Boerner stated that:

“I’ve been in this business for 14 years. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this… You think of what has been in there for 90 days – produce, dairy, meats. It’s kind of hard to comprehend.”

*Even with the obvious contamination of the store, local news reports stated that people did break in to Mexia, and stole canned food, even though the outsides of cans were badly contaminated.

In the end, nobody was ever held accountable. Advance Investment Corp didn’t own Mexia anymore, and Comerica Bank claimed they weren’t the legal owner. Had Fort Worth been unable to find a liable party, a lien would have been filed on Mexia. The building still stands, and now houses a Dollar General, as well as some other buildings.

What does this have to do with found footage, I hear you all ask? Well, the interior of the store, well, in addition to filming of the interior, there were also news reports on the story, but while a little footage has surfaced, most of it is lost forever. What footage we do have was used in an episode of Life After People, and remains the only footage available. Even with searches by internet sleuths, nothing new has turned up.

Now, while this would normally be where I end things, there are deeper mysteries attached to the Mexia Supermarket. Here’s where the rabbit hold deepens. Remember when I said that I was omitting some key dates and information, well, there are valid reasons, since there is a lot we don’t know for sure.

First, who exactly were Advance Investment Corp? Well, the most information we have is that they were “two owners of Laos nationality.” They left the country not long after they closed Mexia, and, aside from a statement issued by their lawyer, have not been heard from again.

Second, when did Mexia open? Well, it, according to the Lost Media Wiki page:

“At some point following October 1997, Mexia came into existence; a data bank listing by the 14th December 1998 issue of Fort Worth Star-Telegram states Mexia’s first taxable data was 5th October, indicating it opened its doors sometime in late-1998.”

Finally, when did Mexia shut down? Well, again, according to the Lost Media Wiki page:

“Sources conflict on when exactly Mexia closed its doors. The 14th November 1999 issues of The Victoria Advocate, Abilene Reporter-News and Odessa American all claimed the store was shut down in July 1999. However, Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that the building was actually abandoned in late August.” Now, given that it’s generally agreed upon that the store was closed for 90 days before clean up started, I’d say that July 1999 is the correct date.

So we have this seemingly innocuous store. Nobody knows who the owners are, nobody knows when it opened, and nobody knows when it closed, and it created a massive bio-hazard that cost $100,000 in 1999 dollars, which is just under $183,000 today. Yet, amazingly, this story was almost lost to history. This is one of the reasons I find lost media interesting, it produced stories like this.

Next week, normal operations resume.

Links:
https://lostmediawiki.com/Mexia_Supermarket_(partially_found_footage_of_abandoned_Texas_grocery_store;_1999)
https://lifeafterpeople.fandom.com/wiki/Mexia_Supermarket
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/fort-worth/KFTW/date/1999-7
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/fort-worth/KFTW/date/1999-8
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/fort-worth/KFTW/date/1999-9
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/fort-worth/KFTW/date/1999-10
https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/tx/fort-worth/KFTW/date/1999-11

By David G Firestone

Welcome back, this week, a script on McDonald’s is up this week.

I’m a fan of McDonald’s. I especially loves me some Chicken McNuggets. I’ve loved Chicken McNuggets since I was a wee young lad. Up until recently, I would always opt for the BBQ sauce, but I’ve branched out into other sauces.

Well recently, I stumbled across this McNugget training video from 1983.

This was from when Chicken McNuggets were being introduced nationwide. It’s a rather lengthy production featuring puppets, and goes through the entire process of cooking this new delicacy. The video cannot stress enough how Chicken McNuggets can’t stick together.

Chicken McNuggets were released nationally in 1983, even though they were created in 1979. They were conceived by Herb Lotman founder of Keystone Foods in the late 1970s. Keystone Foods was McDonald’s supplier at the time. Keystone Foods was sold to Marfrig, a Brazilian company, in 2010, and was then sold to Tyson Foods in 2018.

While Herb Lotman came up with the concept of Chicken McNuggets, René Arend, McDonald’s executive chef brought the idea to life. Though chicken nuggets had been around before, this was their introduction into the fast food world. René Arend is a native of Luxembourg. Arend was a first-in-the-class graduate of the College Technique de Strasbourg, a former chef at Chicago’s Drake Hotel, and chef at the Whitehall Club, also in Chicago.

While Arend was responsible for Chicken McNuggets and the McRib, many of McDonald’s most well-known creations were developed by franchisees. According to the McDonald’s wiki:

The Filet-O-Fish was created by Cincinnati franchisee Lou Groen.

The Egg McMuffin developed by Herb Peterson of Santa Barbara, California.

The iconic Big Mac, McDonald’s most iconic burger, was developed by Pittsburgh franchisee Jim Delligatti

The reason that McNuggets weren’t available nationwide until 1983 was because the supply chains needed to supply the product simply weren’t available. Chicken McNuggets proved to be a hit, and 45 years later, they are still going on strong.

Now for some random McNugget trivia.

According to McDonald’s themselves, the names of the four shapes of Chicken McNuggets are The Ball, The Bell, The Boot and, The Bow-Tie.

Chicken McNuggets are credited with killing off Onion Nuggets, though the onion nuggets weren’t really selling to begin with.

Finally, Halal version of the McNuggets are sold at two McDonald’s franchises in Dearborn, Michigan. These new versions are very successful making double the average of McNuggets sales.

The most interesting historical aspect of McNuggets are the sauces. It starts with the training video from 1983. The videos states that there are four sauces that come with McNuggets. If you had to guess, what are the four sauces?

First, and most obvious, is Barbecue sauce, now called Tangy Barbecue Sauce.

Second is honey. Now these two sauces are such stalwarts that, 41 years later, they are still available, having never been removed.

The third sauce is Sweet ‘N Sour Sauce, not a bad choice.

The fourth sauce, is the oddest sauce out of the bunch. Keep in mind that chicken nuggets as a whole are geared towards, and marketed to kids. With that in mind, what was the fourth sauce? Hot Mustard. Hot Mustard. I’m guessing that this was geared towards adults, but I can’t prove that.

The list of discontinued McDonald’s dipping sauces gets really interesting. Before we get to the discontinued sauces, I’ll talk about the current line-up first.

Currently, McDonald’s offers the following sauces:

Creamy Ranch Sauce, Honey, Honey Mustard Sauce, Spicy Buffalo Sauce, Sweet ‘N Sour Sauce, and Tangy Barbecue Sauce.

Now we get to the discontinued sauces. I’m going to group them in segments.

First, the Asian Themed Sauces

The Hot Mustard Sauce was discontinued in 2015, though it can still be found in some locations, provided you know where to look. Next we have the Szechuan Teriyaki Sauce, released as part of a Mulan tie-in from 1998, though reintroduced thanks to Rick and Morty. McDonald’s also released a Teriyaki Sauce that was discontinued in 1986.

Next, the Barbecue Sauce variants. There were only two variants outside of the standard Barbecue sauce. First was a Chipotle Barbecue Sauce, that didn’t last past 2014. Second was the Mesquite Barbecue Sauce that briefly appeared but didn’t last past 1988.

Third, are the Spicy Sauces. Super spicy sauces, and peppers are a more recent thing. McDonald’s tried a Cajun Sauce in 2021, a Mighty Hot Sauce in 2020,a Habanero Ranch Sauce, and a Sriracha Mac Sauce in 2017.

Fourth are the sauces that can be placed in the other category.

*Mambo Sauce from 2023,
*Sweet & Spicy Jam Sauce also from 2023,
*Signature Sauce from 2022,
*Tartar Sauce Sauce from 2013, though these were meant for use with the ill-fated Fish McBites.
*Zesty Italian Sauce from 1989,
*and Green Chili Salsa from 1988.

Finally we get into the two holiday sauces. These are two of the strangest fast-food sauces I have ever heard of. These were only around for Christmas. Sauce number one is Apple and Cinnamon Sauce, which only existed in 1998. Second, and even more bizarre is Cranberry-Orange Sauce from 1987. Neither of these sauces sound appetising. Every other sauce I have either tried or would try, but these two sauces just straight up sound gross.

So that’s a bit of a history of my favorite fast food meals of all time.

Next week, a piece on a random piece of lost media.

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_NpmOo7XtM
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/full-menu.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-menu-changes-over-years-history-2019-4
https://www.mashed.com/1295097/discontinued-mcdonalds-dipping-sauces/
https://www.eatthis.com/discontinued-fast-food-sauces/
https://www.delish.com/restaurants/a52505/retired-mcdonalds-dipping-sauces/
https://soyummy.com/entertaining/discontinued-mcdonalds-menu-items/
https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Arend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_McNuggets

By David G. Firestone

Since I’m on vacation, I’m rehashing an old Driver Suit Blog Radio script. This one is on a lottery ticket.

Most times, if I talk about an item, it’s something I own. In this case however, the eBay purchase had to be canceled, for reasons not worth getting into here. But I will post photos of the item. Now I’ve gotten into collecting lottery “test tickets” or tickets that were made to be inspected by lotteries that have since been encased in one form or another. I’ll do something on them later.

The only one I wanted, was the one I didn’t get, is this. This is one of the first tickets printed at a printing plant in Gilroy, California, home of the famous Gilroy Garlic Festival. It’s not so much the ticket itself, but the rabbit hole I went down while researching this. This just gets crazy! In order to understand, we have to start at the very beginning of the California lottery…

In California, the Lottery Act of 1984 was presented to voters in November of that year as a ballot proposition, Proposition 37, and passed with 58%. The Act mandated an extremely tight timeline for establishing the Lottery and bringing it to operational status. As such the governor appointed the first Lottery commissioners on January 29, 1985. The state government immediately built the Lottery’s original headquarters in only three months in the Richards neighborhood of Sacramento, where it still resides today.

Like many other state lotteries, California uses Light & Wonder, Inc., formerly Scientific Games Corporation, to manufacture and sell their scratch-off tickets. SGC dates back to 1917, to a company called Autotote, which made totalizator systems for parimutuel wagering at racetracks. In the build up to California’s lottery debut, SCG was responsible for ticket designs and implementation. At the time, SCG utilized Dittler Bros. Inc. of Atlanta, a printing company specializing in lottery ticket printing. This is where the problems start.

You see SGC was well aware of how lucrative this contract would be. They were the firm that wrote California’s lottery initiative and contributed $2.2 million($6,205,487.62) of the $2.4 million($6,769,622.86) spent to finance the measure. They were lobbying all over California for Proposition 37 to pass.

When assured they would get the contract if Prop 37 passed, SCG started their own ticket printing company in Gilroy California…in September, 1984, two months before the lottery initiative passed. Yes, you heard me right. Two months before the vote even took place, SCG started building a plant. Not a cheap plant either. This plant cost $6 million in 1984, roughly $16,924,057. in 2022.

Even with the tight deadlines, it became clear that there were going to be issues. The Gilroy plant was kept secret, using assumed names, much the same way Walt Disney bought land in Orlando for Disney World. This became a serious issue in the lead up to the debut of the California Lottery on October 3, 1985.

The Gilroy plant came into conflict with Dittler Bros. Inc., who had a deal exclusively produce tickets for SGC. The problem was that Dittler Bros. Inc. was not capable of keeping up with the demand set on SCG by the state of California, and everyone knew it. That, combined with transportation costs made the new Gilroy plant the only real option. So, with a lot to lose, and little to gain from this new arrangement, Dittler Bros. Inc. sued SCG. The judge in this case, Osgood Williams, my new favorite judge name, ruled on June 14, 1985, that SCG had to use Dittler as the main supplier, but then also gave Dittler 75 days–the entire time California is allowing for production of tickets–to produce 700 million tickets for two games.

It very quickly became apparent that this wasn’t going to work. During another set of court battles leading up to June 30, 1986, some new facts became clear. It was clear that California wasn’t happy with Dittler’s work, to the point that they told SGC to fire Dittler on June 12, 1986. This would cost the company $32 million if they didn’t. It also emerged that Dittler had overcharged SGC for materials, as ruled by a court auditor-arbitrator. This would culminate in SGC finally opening their new ticket printing plant on June 30, 1986.

The SGC/Dittler feud would go on a little longer, with a 1991 lawsuit concerning the Florida lottery. Though the company was, by that point, more of a spent force. Dittler’s reputation would further be tainted through the McDonald’s Monopoly fraud. Dittler and Jerome Paul Jacobson crossed paths, when he was hired as a security guard for Dittler, who, in conjunction with Simon Marketing, created the first McDonald’s Monopoly in 1987. Jacobson would quickly figure out how to move the top pieces to allies, and quickly did. This went on until 2001, when the whole scheme came to light. Jacobson and his allies would spend time in jail. Jacobson has said if given the chance, he’d do it all over again.

This is one of the longest and oddest rabbit holes I’ve ever gone down while researching something. It just keeps going. I’ve never had so much news and lawsuits related to an item I’ve researched before, and I had to share it with you.

Next Week, the history of my favorite fast food meal is examined.

Links:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-14-mn-2537-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-06-25-mn-20271-story.html

By David G. Firestone

By the time you read this, I will be on a badly needed vacation. This will be a rehash of a script that I wrote for Driver Suit Blog Radio. Enjoy!

Last year, I went down an odd rabbit hole. One of my coworkers took her family to Seattle for spring break. She was talking about her vacation in the break room, as you do, and she mentioned how nice The Evergreen State College campus was. I thought that the name Evergreen State College sounded really familiar, even though there was no logical reason I should have. So, after work, I went home and looked up Evergreen State College, and it came to me.

In 2017, there was a series of protests there, which were handled badly by all involved, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. But looking deeper into this college, I had to start laughing. According to Wikipedia:

“Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a pre-determined path of study. Full-time students can enroll in interdisciplinary academic programs, in addition to stand-alone classes. Programs typically offer students the opportunity to study several disciplines in a coordinated manner. Faculty write substantive narrative evaluations of students’ work in place of issuing grades.

“Evergreen was one of many alternative colleges and programs launched in the 1960s and 1970s, often described as experiments. While the vast majority of these have either closed or adopted more mainstream approaches, Evergreen is pursuing its mission, although enrollment is declining.”

There is a reason these “alternative colleges” failed. They tried to change the system, but the system always wins when it comes to education. The people who want to change the system can’t work within the system, so they think that the world needs to change, instead of themselves. Well, the world sees right through it, and colleges like this are seen as a joke.

If you need proof this “college” has no real credibility as an institution, here it is. Evergreen State College is NOT open enrollment, yet they have a 99% acceptance rate. 99% is seen as the consensus, since some sources state 99.5%. If this was an open enrollment community college, this wouldn’t be too shocking, but this is supposedly a post-high school college. For all of the students who enroll, 99% of them get accepted.

Now let me explain why this removes any credibility this school may have. There is an argument that every student should be given the chance to go to college. My version is that the students who could make the most of an opportunity should be given one. The D- student who spends more time in detention or deans office than class shouldn’t be given that chance. This school is for liberals who have no other option, working or military service included. There are no real standards for admission.

Also, the “design their own study towards a degree” thing isn’t a great move. You basically are giving the students the very false impression that they can dictate their own ways to success. Also, the fact that “faculty write substantive narrative evaluations of students’ work in place of issuing grades” thing takes even more credibility away, since the A-F grade standard has been a thing in the US for over a century, and is the accepted standard. It’s basically a college for students who can’t handle working within accepted standards, and this isn’t an impressive look for potential employers.

But in thinking about this, I had an epiphany. This school accepts 99% of all students who enroll. How bad of a screw up do you have to be to get rejected? How bad of a student, or a person are you where you are in the 1% of students who have applications rejected? This school ignores all standards, yet 1% of applications are in the reject basket.

To put this in perspective, Harvard University, which has real standards, accepts 5% of all applications. This means it’s five times easier to get accepted to Harvard than it is to get rejected by The Evergreen State College. Just take a few seconds and let that register…I’ll wait.

The school and those who attend can’t understand why this college is slowly fading, yet the fact that nobody could possibly take this school seriously, given the complete lack of standards or real direction this school has, should be obvious! Seriously, even some of the most liberal, against the grain small liberal arts college still use the A-F system, yet this regional college thinks they have a better system than the accepted standard.

Again, this school is for students who don’t have any other options, since anyone who can go to a better school does so. If you are enrolled, it’s a good school, if not, it’s a joke. Working in the system gets you credibility. Redesigning the wheel will get you nowhere, and nobody will respect you. The system isn’t going to change to please a regional college in Washington State, so they need to adapt, since the rest of the world won’t.

Next Week I will feature a lottery ticket video.

Link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_State_College