He Was in a Pickle, and Joan Kroc Helped Out

It’s not every day that somebody gets a present in the mail from Joan Kroc, and it’s probably the first time that San Diego’s best-known philanthropist has sent a 5-gallon jar of pickles to somebody she doesn’t even know.

But when Joseph Ditler, 37, arrived at his doorstep in Coronado Friday afternoon, he found a jar of pickles as big as a small child. It had a red ribbon affixed to it, and, of course, a note from “Joan.” Kroc’s late husband was founder and chairman of the board of McDonald’s.

“I’m sorry you’re in a pickle about McDonald’s pickle policy . . . ,” the note began, as sympathetic as a Krocian overture to the homeless.

So how did this all come about?

Ditler, a free-lance boating writer, is a self-described pickle-holic. As a child, he said, the only gesture that saved him from self-induced death by starvation was getting to smother his hamburgers with pickles. He hated the taste of everything but pickles. If you are what you eat, Ditler was, and to some extent still is, a blond, blue-eyed pickle.

So, for years, Ditler took to ordering Big Macs at McDonald’s restaurants around the world. In a variety of languages, he would ask for 12 to 20 extra pickles in the Netherlands, the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico.

It was more than once that Ditler would look over the counter and announce in Spanish with a picklish smile:

“ Quiero un pepinillo! “

Translation: “I want a pickle.” He would point to the meat of his burger and explain that a dozen would “adequately” kill the taste and leave him counting his McBlessings.

About a month ago, Ditler strolled into the McDonald’s at 1135 Palm Ave. in Imperial Beach. He asked for extra pickles. The manager said no, Ditler said, adding sourly that it wasn’t the first time. The three that come with a Big Mac were just not enough.

So, he sat down and wrote Joan Kroc a letter, appealing to her instincts as a peacemaker while trying to sweeten his poison-pickle mood. He mailed the letter and, a couple of weeks later, got an answer from Kroc’s office. He was asked to call a phone number in La Jolla.

He did so, and that’s when he got the dill icious word from a Kroc associate to get ready for a nifty surprise. Having read about and admired the famous woman, Ditler confessed to cranking up the fantasies. What would the prize be? A pickle-colored Porsche? A night on the town with Bip Roberts? A lifetime supply of free McDLTs?

No, just pickles. Lots and lots of pickles.

Ditler said the jar contains 6,300 pickles with an expiration date of January, 1990.

“There’s no way I’ll finish them by then,” he said worriedly. “But my wife is pregnant, and you know how pregnant women are always craving pickles. So maybe . . . “

At the McDonald’s in Imperial Beach, second assistant manager Debra King had apparently heard of Ditler.

“I can’t say anything. . . . I can’t make any comment at all,” she said tersely, referring the caller to an office in Chicago, where everyone had left for the day.

Ditler had actually hoped for a “carte blanche” letter from Kroc that he could show to any McDonald’s employee who might try to muscle their own version of the just-say-no philosophy. In her reply, Kroc noted that she is “not involved in the operation or management of the McDonald’s Corporation,” although she is on the board of directors.

So, he would just have to settle for his heart’s desire--more pickles than a pickle lover can handle.

Kroc’s response on Friday?

“Mrs. Kroc has no comment,” said an annoyed Chuck Gelman, an executive with the Padres, who was delegated the task of speaking for Kroc--who owns the team--on the pickle issue. “She didn’t do this for publicity. She did this for a McDonald’s customer. She was just trying to make him happy.”