Lunch with a billionaire

I got this story from one of the lads at the Irving-owned shipyard. His dad was on the trip.

About thirty or forty years ago K.C. Irving took a group of executives on a trip to Georgia and Alabama to scope out some pulp operations he was thinking about buying.

At the time KC was generally considered the world's richest man and one of the first billionaire industrialists of the modern era.

Folklore has it that KC never carried money or ID. Come lunch time, the half-dozen or so executives on the junket had viewed one mill and were taking a lunch break before heading off to view another.

Their entourage stopped at a KFC in rural Alabama and KC sent one of his flunkies in to grab a couple barrels of chicken.

Then the entourage of executives sat at the picnic table in front of the restaurant and enjoyed their free lunch of Kentucky fried chicken.

Nothing like a gang of Canadian suits sitting in the Alabama sun licking their fingers to make you realize that idols large and small all have feet of clay.

This story comes to mind because it's Forbes Billionaire List  time. KC is long dead, but a couple of his kids show up way down the list.

But they're well ahead of Donald Trump.

What's interesting about Forbes' list is that people lobby to get on it. I wasn't aware of that fact until I read this about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has kicked up quite a fuss over being "only" 26th.

Apparently he lobbies even harder than Donald Trump to boost his ranking on the list.

I'm guessing the Irvings aren't the only folks who lobby to be left off the list.