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On this page I will put pictures from this year that don't relate to a specific trip or event.

August 20: Baskin-Robbins Pictures

If you have already visited my personal home page, you are already familiar with my Baskin-Robbins odyssey, but if you aren't, then the three pictures on this page will need a bit of explanation.

The Quest Begins

I suppose that my connection with Baskin-Robbins is one of the stranger outgrowths of my career as a consultant. I am sure you are all familiar with Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream, often simply known as "31 Flavors." The company began in the 1960s in Southern California, and by the time I started traveling for business, there were many outlets across the country (some of which I had already been to in Indianapolis, Chicago and Charlotte). I supposed it all began when I started traveling extensively for Cullinane Corporation. My installation partner, Tony Hirsch, and I routinely ate out together after our class and installation day was finished, and we found that we could usually run across one of the franchises for dessert after dinner in one city or another across the United States.

After about a year or so, we began to wonder how many of these stores we had been to, and we made a list one evening. We were a bit surprised that we could list 40 or 50 stores without much trouble. For a while after that, we kept the list up-to-date, adding stores as we ran across them. I continued the practice when I traveled alone. (We did the same thing with the now-defunct or certainly drastically downsized restaurant chain, Victoria Station, and I was eventually able to eat a meal at every one of their US outlets.) So we had something interesting (and delicious) to do when there was little else going on in the evening.

Let's Make it a Project!

About the time the total passed 100 stores, I began to see that if we could find a hundred of them without trying, there must be a lot more than that in business, so the next time I was in a store, I asked the store owner if I could get a list of store locations. Understandably, we couldn't find a store owner who would disclose the information, perhaps thinking that we might be trying to compete or sell them something. But each store usually had a chart on the wall that listed the cities and states where there were stores, and I did get one store owner to give me a copy of that list.

Using this list, we could tell when we were in a town that had a store, and it was easy enough to take a look in the phone book early in the week to find out where the stores were, and arranging our evening meals so we could visit a couple of new ones (if the town were large enough to have more than one) each week.

By 1976, the newest list of store locations revealed that there were 1300 outlets worldwide, and I realized that at a rate of 50 or 100 per year, I was hardly keeping up with new ones. It was at this time that the unconscious decision was made that I would try to get to as many of the stores as I could. I kept track of the stores I'd visited in a notebook, and collected a receipt or flyer from each store where I could get one stamped with the store's number and address. Actually, I began going out of my way to get to as many new stores as I could, trying at least for a different one each evening on the road.

Appropriately, the total number of stores I had visited passed the 200 mark in 1976- the Bicentennial Year. To celebrate celebrate the event, Tony and I had a scoop of each of the "Bicentennial Flavors" at the 200th store, which happened to be in Tampa, Florida.

The Project Goes into High Gear- and Goes High-Tech

By 1978, the total had reached 500- a pretty good pace, I thought. But, unfortunately, the total number of stores had increased to 1800. I was falling behind! So I made the decision that if I was going to hope to visit all the stores in my lifetime, I would have to up the ante. Arrival in a new city meant a check of the phone book for the local addresses and the plotting of store locations on a city map. Then, each night during the week, I would visit one or two new stores after dinner, having a scoop of ice cream at each one.

In some cities, like Los Angeles, there were a great many stores (300 of them in the entire metro area); in those places, things got a bit out of hand. I recall one day in Los Angeles that another Cullinane employee and I went to four stores on our lunch hour, another five before dinner, and ten afterwards! Nineteen stores (and nineteen scoops of ice cream) in a single day! But my dedication was helping; I began to visit stores faster than they were being opened.

I should also point out that back then there didn't seem to be all the concern there is today about what we all eat- particularly as "fat grams" are concerned. Nutritional labeling was just getting started, and stores like Baskin-Robbins hadn't begun posting such information for consumers. It's probably just as well that they didn't, for if they had, I would have definitely had second thoughts about escapades such as that day in Los Angeles. I know now that each scoop of ice cream from Baskin-Robbins averages 16 fat grams, meaning that 19 scoops in one day worked out to over 300 fat grams that day!!! Certainly a bit over the recommended 50-70 fat grams per day for the average person. I did keep up with my jogging and running each day, so perhaps that saved me from a starring role in "The Nutty Professor II - The Klumps."

About this time the record-keeping began to get onerous as I tried to conscientiously record each store and keep 'em organized by state and city. Since I was working for a software firm, and had access to a computer frequently, I used our own software to keep the information on a reel of magnetic tape, and updated and produced reports from that tape whenever I needed them.

Well, my concerted effort paid off; the total number of different stores visited reached an even 1000 in May of this year. A check of the new store lists posted in each franchise revealed that I was getting to new ones just a bit faster than they were being opened- I was gaining ground!

Baskin-Robbins Inc. Finds Out

When the total passed 1000, I got the idea to tell Baskin-Robbins about it. I sent them a computerized listing of all the stores I had been too, and a lengthly letter recounting in more detail what I have written here. I heard back from them quite quickly. The Director of Public Relations called me in Chicago and congratulated me on my achievement; he also sent me a "Golden Scoop Award." This award (a gold-plated ice cream scoop attached to an engraved plaque) is usually given to stores or store managers for various achievements; I was the only outsider to have received one.

Also inclosed with the plaque were 31 $1 gift certificates. (Baskin-Robbins does everything in units of 31- even their address is 31 Baskin-Robbins Place in Glendale, and their phone number ends in 0031.) While $31 worth of free ice cream might not seem like much today, back then a single scoop cone was less than 50 cents, so those certificates represented a lot of ice cream.

I was very pleased with the award, and I hung it immediately over my desk in my Chicago condo. When I moved to Dallas and had one of the bedrooms converted to a study/library, it once again occupied a prominent place on the wall- right up there with my MBA from the University of Chicago.

But, more interesting, the Director asked if he could have a photographer contact me to take some publicity pictures for the next issue of Scoops, the Baskin-Robbins corporate newspaper for franchisees. That early this month, and I met the photographer at the Lincoln Avenue store in Chicago, where he took the pictures on this page.

Of course, I got copies of the paper for my scrapbook, but there were other, more interesting effects as well. For some months after the newspaper came out, I was occasionally recognized by store owners. This was always amusing, and often resulted in free ice cream. A number of times, I was asked to autograph the issue of the newspaper with my picture on the front page. One store owner told me she had been wondering whether her store had already been visited, and had even called the home office to have them consult my list. When she found out she wasn't on the list, she had left instructions with all the employees of her store to call her should I ever come in! As it turned out, she was there. (Actually, I thought she went a bit overboard, but then maybe being a BR franchisee is boring on occasion, too.)

My efforts continued into my new employment with IST/McDonnell-Douglas. At my new firm, it seemed as if different areas of the country got added to my travel schedule, so there was no end of new stores to visit, it seemed.

Postscript: The Second Thousand

I am writing this narrative early in the new milennium, so I can report that I continued my odyssey through the 1980s and into the 1990s, but the problem began to be that while most of the stores are in large cities, these are places that I have been to often enough so that all the stores have been visited (no mean feat in Los Angeles with its 300+ stores!). Fully a third of the stores are either in small towns that I never travel to or are outside the United States, where they are harder to find. In Europe, for example, small stores like Baskin-Robbins don't always have phones, and even the ones that do are not always listed in the local phone book. There, I have to start at one store and ask the proprietor where there is another store close by, and so on. Even so, this is an imperfect way to try to find them all.

At about store 1500, I visited the headquarters in Glendale, California, and actually met with some of the public relations people there. I garnered more gift certificates and one promise: the Director of Public Relations told me (I hope she remembers) that if I ever were to achieve my goal of visiting each and every store in the continental United States, she would finance visits to all the other stores! At the time, there were only a few stores overseas, but now there are many. Although my totals continued to mount, things were inevitably slowing down, for the reasons given above. I'll keep going, but I don't think that she is in any danger of having to make good on her promise.

October 22: In My Chicago Condo

Today I have one odd picture that I happened to take in my Chicago condo. This picture (and, yes, I really need to get a flash attachment that fits my new camera) looks from the entry of my apartment towards the southwest corner of the living room.

Here's a copy of the floorplan of my condo, and I've marked the position from which the picture was taken:

I still have the original burnt orange shag carpeting, and my RCA dry sink console television. The stereo stuff is in the tall rack at the right, although one of the components is currently out for repairs. I really like the floor to ceiling windows; not only do they bring in a lot of light, but they make the views pretty spectacular no matter where you are in the apartment. I have purchased Early American furniture from Ethan Allen- all dark pine- and when I renovated the kitchen I did the cabinets in the same wood.

I really like this highrise, and I am glad I bought the unit when the building went condo in 1977.

November 12: My Second Class for IST

If you've looked at the page describing the photos I took at the Cullinane User Week in Boca Raton, and if you had a chance to read the diary entry, you know that I have taken a bit of time off from Cullinane to try a new gig with IST.

John Cullinane was very understanding about this opportunity and quite willing for me to try it, as I'd promised him that if I didn't enjoy the work, I would stay with his firm.

This would be the second class I've done for IST. The first was in New York City with Chris; he thought I had quite well, and so I did my second class with Trish. This class was at Digital Equipment Corporation in Waltham, MA.

The class went very well; Trish apparently told Chris in a phone call that I almost seemed like a different person, compared with the test audition I'd done for her a month ago. In fact, during the week Trish got news that her mother in England was very ill, and felt that things were going well enough that she could leave the class on Wednesday and trust that I could finish the last two days.

This was a nice vote of confidence, and both I and DEC appreciated it. DEC was very complimentary in the evaluations they sent to the office in New York, and Trish said later that mine was the only case where an IST instructor took his training at a particular client and then was specifically requested back by that client to do regular classes after obtaining his "wings." Trish said that was due to the fact that, even though I was technically there to learn, that fact was not apparent to the class, although Ruth Fish, the training coordinator, knew.

I didn't take any pictures at the client site, but one evening on my way back to my hotel, I happened to stop by the Cullinane offices to meet Tony for dinner, and I took a few pictures. Above, left, we are at the end of the Fall color in New England.

This is 20 William Street. Not an imposing building, but very pretty- particularly as a foil for the reds and golds of the trees in the Fall.

This view looks Eastward, towards Boston.

I suppose that the real reason that I took these pictures was that I knew that eventually I would be taking the job with IST, although I didn't know that for a fact as yet.

Those are the miscellaneous pictures for 1979. You can use the link below to return to the index for this year.

Return to Index for 1979