Harold’s Chicken Shack #86

we’re trying to eliminate the shack. — Kristen Pierce, Harold’s CEO & daughter of founder Harold Pierce when i went to summer camp the white kids had a tendency to shorten names of important institutions. make Northwestern University into NU. international relations into IR. everybody started calling me Nate. before this i imagined myself Nathaniel A. maybe even N. Armstead to big up my granddad. i wrote my whole name on everything. eventually i started unintentionally introducing myself as Nate. it never occurred to me that they could escape the knowing of my name’s real length. as a shorty most the kids in my neighborhood couldn’t say my name. Mick-daniel, Nick-thaniel, MacDonnel shot across the courts like wild heaves toward the basket. the subconscious visual of a chicken shack seems a poor fit for national expansion. Harold’s Chicken is easier, sounds like Columbus’s flag stuck into a cup of cole slaw. shack sounds too much like home of poor people, like haven for weary like building our own.