As we were getting our bearings in Fairbanks, we discovered that the post office, where we had our PO box, was right down the hill from the university. Just in front of the post office was a McDonald’s with a drive-thru. One day, we drove through and were surprised to see Ronald McDonald hanging from a tree in a backyard just over the privacy wall. It was a bit startling.
For the entire decade we were there, so was Ronald, just hanging from that tree. We rarely went to McDonald’s, but our eyes were drawn to it every time we drove by. We later found out that this was a protest against the building of the McDonald’s in the first place. There had apparently been a zoning change which paved the way, much to the dismay of the people who lived there. They were subjected to the smells, noise, and headlights that came with the restaurant. They built the privacy wall, which would have taken care of the headlight problem, I suppose, but the issues remained and the homeowners were not happy about it. They expressed their anger in a very visible way. It has been years since we left Alaska. Whether Ronald hangs there still, I do not know.
