The Old Howard Johnsons Story from Ms. Weir
As usual, the chosen illustrations for HJ in the original link are completely inappropriate, showing a Times Square-area cocktail lounge and a 1960s-era gabled building used for Motor Lodge offices and only rarely for restaurants: What Killed Howard Johnson’s? Jane Weir, American Renaissance, October 8, 2019 Former French President Jacques Chirac died a few days ago, and once again Howard Johnson’s was back in the news. In the summer of 1953, when young Jacques was taking a summer course at the Harvard Business School, he worked the counter at a local Howard Johnson’s, where he was a dab hand at making banana splits. Years later, he liked to say that the company founder, old Howard Deering Johnson, came by one day and commended the future president of France as “an excellent sodajerk.” The obituaries mangled the tale as they usually do when Howard Johnson’s turns up in the news. The Daily Beast had Chirac “scooping ice cream at a Howard J...