Advertisement

92-year-old McDonald’s employee could be company’s oldest

Customers at a McDonald's restaurant in Iowa can ask for fries and a conversation with an employee born before colour television.

Television station KCCI interviewed Sara Dappen, the 92-year-old employee of a McDonald's in Story City. Born in 1920, Dappen still scoots around the restaurant cleaning tables and chatting with people as they eat.

[ Related: Lab-grown stem cell burger will cost mystery diner $350,000 ]

Her explanation? "I thought it was more interesting to keep walking around here than to be walking up and down the street," she said.

The broadcaster spoke to Dappen after the British newspaper, The Sun, published a story calling Bill Dudley, an 88-year-old at a McDonald's in North Wales the oldest employee of the fast food chain in the world.

They were wrong, but the elderly Dudley was as diligent as his American McDonald's colleague, working two days a week as a cleaner and a greeter, even with a pacemaker and after knee surgery, according to the newspaper.

Dudley is a WWII veteran who formerly worked for Airbus and as a taxi driver.

These busy bee retirees lend support to the theory that living long means staying occupied. Jiroemon Kimura, the oldest man who ever lived, retired from the post office at 65, but he kept working in agriculture until he was 90, according to Guinness World Records. Kimura died in June at the age of 115 years and 253 days.

[ Related: KFC to test upmarket restaurant with only boneless chicken, no colonel ]

But the senior fast food workers might want to stay out of the greasy burgers to live as long as Kimura did.

The oldest man ever told Guinness his secret was "eat light to live long."