SAVANNAH - Katherine Sheppard waited her whole life to be asked one simple question: ``Would you like fries with that?'' <br>
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The 94-year-old Savannah woman had never eaten fast food before Monday, when she visited a McDonald's and was treated to a sampler of modern-day staples: Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets and Filet-o-Fish. <br>
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``The fish sandwich is a complete surprise,'' said Sheppard, who had no need for fast food for the past nine and a half decades because she always cooked for herself. <br>
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``I love fish, and I didn't know a fish sandwich could be so tasty.'' <br>
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Restaurant owner Pat Tracy also gave Sheppard a goodie bag filled with a purple McDonald's straw; a ceramic McDonald's coffee mug; a small, stuffed Ronald McDonald doll; and an old-style McDonald's paper hat signed by the crew. <br>
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``At 94 years, we wanted her to have the best time ever at a fast-food restaurant,'' Tracy said. <br>
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Sheppard's son, Edward, said his mother was always too busy cooking up her own special dishes, including his favorite seafood gumbo and shrimp salad. ``She's cooked for everybody and his brother for all these years.'' <br>
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The trip was organized by the activity therapy director at Riverview Health and Rehabilitation Center after Katherine Sheppard told some of her fellow residents that she'd never had a Quarter Pounder, Whopper or Frosty. <br>
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Sheppard arrived in style, riding in a shiny red Toyota MR2 Spyder convertible and escorted by Tony Calandra - also 94. A participant each year in the center's beauty pageant, she was dressed in a dark green dress, coat and hat - along with green St. Patrick's Day beads - but traded in her hat for the paper crew hat. <br>
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She also prepared her appetite for the trip, having only hot tea for breakfast. <br>
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``I didn't have a darn thing to eat,'' she said.
