(FORTUNE Magazine) – I WAS 8 YEARS OLD, sitting in our brand-new cherry-red '57 Chrysler clutching a 15-cent hamburger and 10-cent fries. The crowded parking lot flickered under the most amazing neon sign Aurora, Illinois, has ever seen -- twin golden arches with a little neon-legged man running in between them. The sign said these speedy McDonald's people had sold over 10 million hamburgers. No wonder. As I sat there slurping on a milkshake so thick it made the straw collapse, I was in heaven. I didn't know that this pioneering red-and-white tile building, sitting oddly on the prairie, would be an early link in a restaurant chain that has woven itself through our culture. It would go quickly from a curiosity to a tradition here, then spill across great oceans. Today golden arches beam out in Andorra, Kuala Lumpur, and Belgrade. Earlier this year the company opened its 10,000th restaurant and announced plans to open 20 in the Soviet Union. In the whole world, more people eat at McDonald's every day than live in Australia and New Zealand. When entrepreneur Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, on Friday, April 15, 1955, his cash register rang up $366.12. He noted in his ledger, now part of the McDonald's museum complex at the site, ''It rained.'' But the rain stopped, and in two weeks sales had doubled. Last year the chain's restaurants, mostly franchises, grossed more than $14.3 billion, and the corporation took in $4.9 billion; it has to date logged 92 quarters of record earnings. It is the biggest owner of commercial real estate in America. It is the biggest food service corporation in the world. Over nine months recently, Wendy's and Pillsbury's Burger King closed 149 unprofitable restaurants. McDonald's during the same period opened a new restaurant every 17 hours. What on earth is its secret? As the world of fast food turns, McDonald's should have run out its string a long time ago. It should have had its moment in the sun and then, in this crowded industry with notoriously fickle customers, should have been shoved aside. But McDonald's moment is about 30 years old, and the sun never sets on McDonald's empire. It's enough to make me pause mid-McMuffin. How does this company -- which makes this food that is going to give me indigestion, but I'm eating it anyway -- do it? Yes, Harvard MBAs will tell you that McDonald's better mousetrap was a unique partnership that strongly supported rather than bled franchisees. They'll explain that McDonald's handles real estate cleverly, that it maintains strong central control over its restaurants and deals with suppliers in a straightforward manner that relies more on gentlemen's agreements than on signed contracts. It has gone after the kids' market. Right. Every competitor has known these things for decades. SO WHAT is the real, deep-down reason McDonald's has prevailed? I think the question can be answered in part by me: the quintessential middle-class baby- boomer fast-food lover who grew up to be a quintessential almost middle- age, sometimes yuppie who can be felled on any given afternoon by a Big Mac Attack. McDonald's is a powerful sociological phenomenon that is not simple to grasp. Understanding it surely begins with the sociology of the company. McDonald's folks attribute their success to devotion to their corporate creed of ''quality, service, cleanliness, and value.'' They exude competence. Walking around the 80-acre Oak Brook, Illinois, headquarters complex brought out the heartland elitist in me. I can't help believing American efficiency reaches its apex right about where Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa come together and, with pockets of exceptions, declines in concentric rings moving toward both coasts. When asked if he could sum up the secret of McDonald's success in one sentence, chief financial officer Jack Greenberg -- who can assemble a Big Mac as fast as lightning -- says, somewhat shyly, ''Well, for one thing, we're Midwestern.'' Unlike many other franchise companies, McDonald's never bought anybody, and nobody bought it. Hamburgers were its business and its only business. Says Arthur Thompson, a senior vice president of National Westminster Bank and a man who finances a lot of McDonald's franchises: ''The story of McDonald's success? They stuck to their knitting.'' The chief knitter at McDonald's was and is -- yes, is -- Ray Kroc, an amazing man who, four years after his death at age 81, remains one of America's most powerful CEOs. He is quoted incessantly around headquarters. Jack Greenberg explains that the knitting ''is not rocket science. It's rather plain-vanilla kinds of things, like don't take your eye off the basic business.'' He goes on to talk about Ray Kroc's ideals. Chief executive officer Mike Quinlan talks about Ray too. ''If there's one reason for our success, it's that Ray Kroc instilled in the company basic principles. Standards of excellence. Don't compromise. Use the best ingredients. The best equipment. Not galvanized metal, but stainless steel.'' Ray is not only quoted, he is, uh, sort of there in Oak Brook today. In a headquarters exhibit called ''Talk to Ray,'' a visitor can phone up Ray, as it were, on a videoscreen, and with a keyboard ask him questions. Over several years he recorded his thoughts for the company archives, and his appearances on talk shows were taped as well, so those left to carry on can find out about nearly everything they might need to know. I asked Ray about luck. Ray told me, ''Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.'' Ray talks about the time he ''washed the windows every day, inside and out.'' Then there's a snip of him with Phil Donahue. ''Did you really clean the johns?'' Phil asks. ''You're damn right I did,'' Ray shoots back, ''and I'd clean one today if it needed it.'' What Ray says still goes at McDonald's. Greenberg only sort of jokes that the bathroom standards may keep the corporate giant from diversifying. ''We say around here we're not going to diversify until all of our 20,000 restrooms are in perfect order,'' Greenberg says. His wife reports to him upon exiting any McDonald's ladies' room. ''Sometimes she'll come out and just shake her head and say, 'Jack, you can't diversify yet.' '' BEAN COUNTERS with sharp pencils might snicker at Kroc's obsession with shiny windows and bathrooms. But we customers don't. Although I hadn't thought about it until I talked to Ray, I do appreciate clean johns. Then just the other day, a friend of mine seeing a McDonald's bag in my hand mused, ''You know, when my kids were young, and we were heading somewhere on the road, nothing made me happier than finding a McDonald's. Fast food. Clean johns.'' Ray Kroc was long on Krocisms, such as this one about competitors: ''If they were drowning to death, I would put a hose in their mouth.'' Kroc also knew when not to compete. He took a look at other franchising systems and decided one major flaw was that they competed with themselves. Some required franchisees to buy equipment or supplies from them, then delivered overpriced or poor-quality merchandise. Sometimes the mother company sold large territorial franchises. The franchisees then subdivided their districts. Soon there were layers of bureaucracy -- and royalties skimmed off -- between the top bananas and the lowly store. Left with little profit and direction, franchisees rebelled, and soon droves of malcontents took down the glitzy franchise signs to become some variation of ''Mom and Pop's Burgers and Cones.'' Kroc did it differently. He sold only single-unit franchises. They originally cost $950 and a 1.9% cut of revenues. In McDonald's: Behind the Arches, a lively corporate history, writer John Love explains, ''The essence of Kroc's unique but amazingly simple franchising philosophy was that a franchising company should not live off the sweat of its franchisees, but should succeed by helping its franchisees succeed.'' All of which helps explain why you would expect McDonald's to be a winner, but doesn't quite decipher the company's astonishing grip on the American -- and increasingly the world -- consumer. Something more must be going on. Let's see if we can figure it out. After that first meal in 1957, McDonald's never left my life. Although my family moved about northern Illinois, we were never far from Mac's. I remember the whole family, with Grandma or an uncle in tow, remarking when the sign under Speedee's running legs changed . . . 100 million sold . . . 200 . . . 300 . . . 500. (The company went public in 1965; if I had bought 100 shares, for $2,250, I would today have 9,295 shares worth about $400,000.) By the time I headed off to college in 1967, the sign had changed to three billion, and the chain comprised nearly 1,000 stores. By now all of America was heading for the golden arches. We boomers were hooked on the taste. Some of us were having kids of our own. Several factors had been at work over those years to make McDonald's part of our culture. After the war, as everybody knows, America went car crazy, the suburbs sprawled, times were good, and in general we began to hurry. Carhop hamburger joints had reputations as teen hangouts with inconsistent food and slow service. At McDonald's, we little boomers could get out of the folks' car, walk up to the window, and order -- a very grown-up thing to do. It was also more fun than having to sit in a restaurant, where there was nothing to do but shake salt on your sister. We learned to hate to wait. Mark Friedman, director of the Nutrition Program at Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center, says that for people like me, ''the golden arches may trigger a Pavlovian response to food. It's learned behavior: A Big Mac is a quick calorie payoff.'' Rather than being bored with McDonald's sameness, we learned to appreciate it. In a world where one of my ancestral homes became an on-ramp for the Illinois tollway and another was claimed for an atomic accelerator site, McDonald's became a symbol of stability. A McDonald's meal tastes pretty much the same everywhere. It can cure homesickness and make strange places less strange. I brightened up considerably when, after a long day on Guam earlier this year, the golden arches greeted me around a bend. ANOTHER thing: The McDonald's folks have gained an edge by making you want to hug them. At my inner-city yuppie McDonald's a few nights back, a young lawyer ahead of me pointed out to the cashier that she had undercharged him by $1.87. ''Your mom would be proud of you,'' I joked with him. ''Aw, I couldn't cheat McDonald's,'' he replied. ''It'd be like stealing from Mickey Mouse.'' McDonald's does good works. It backs community events. Ronald McDonald Houses help the families of seriously ill children. Does any of this sell more burgers? Probably not directly. But a new survey (see News/Trends) shows that, among 672 brands, consumers esteem McDonald's 68th most highly. Its closest fast-food competitor, Kentucky Fried Chicken, came in at No. 136. Whatever accounts for McDonald's rating, do-gooding can't hurt. McDonald's TV commercials are like no others. Some are beautifully produced vignettes that say nothing about food or prices or convenience or service. I defy anyone who ever had a sibling to watch the ''Little Sister'' commercial -- the one where the big brother recalls his times at Mac's with his sister, from childhood to prom night -- without getting a lump in the throat. No competitor does anything like them. And the company spends more than $1 million a day putting them on the tube. The McDonald's appeal is global and getting more so. The company's Hamburger University training center in Oak Brook, like a little United Nations, provides simultaneous translations of its two-week course in 17 languages. Last May, at the 409th graduation ceremony, 230 students from all over America and the world sat in rapt attention as achievement awards were handed out. When it came time for the award for technical merit in equipment handling, the room grew quiet as students waited to learn who among them had most quickly assembled the 57 parts of a milkshake machine -- blindfolded. The crowd applauded third-place Johnnie Tsang, who had nailed it -- or rather bolted it -- in seven minutes 53 seconds to take a prize home to his hometown Hong Kong McDonald's. They giggled a little when another Hong Konger, Winly Yip, came in second at 7:42. But they all just threw up their arms and laughed when first prize went to David Fung, whose 7:34 time sent him home victorious not to the Hong Kong McDonald's, but to the new Kowloon McDonald's right across the harbor. In March the first McDonald's in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, set an all-time opening day record by running 6,000 persons under the arches. About 40% of McDonald's franchises opening this year stand on foreign soil. The biggest franchise worldwide is in Rome (sales target for this year: $11 million). Most stock analysts who follow the company still love it, although at least one worries about fast-rising expenses, including those associated with a sales promotion based on the Monopoly game. (Using pieces you get every time you visit, you try to fill up parts of a special Monopoly board. Prizes range from free fries to $2 million.) Company executives figure they still have a lot of growth opportunities, since they have captured only 21% of the $60 billion-a-year U.S. fast-food market. They mention expanding the dinner menu. In his headquarters test kitchens, chef Rene Arend is working on a tiny pizza the company would like to offer, and he has just perfected a zesty pasta salad. When I visited chef Rene, he offered me a taste of the salad. ''I'd buy that,'' I said sincerely. ''I could buy it for dinner when I'm in getting lunch.'' Then I rethought that: ''No, I'd go back because I'm playing the Monopoly game, and if I make two purchases I get two chances to win.'' With that, my corporate escort grinned and pointed his finger at me: ''We'd call you a double transactor.'' How does McDonald's do it? They've got all the me's in the world, and they're keeping us. And getting us to come back again and again. On the same day. For dumb things like Monopoly game pieces. Or are they dumb? After all, wasn't Monopoly the game we played when we weren't riding in our cherry-red Chryslers back in 1957? Aren't all us boomers just a little nostalgic about Monopoly? And then don't we usually win fries or a drink, which gets us back for lunch again? I can almost feel Ray Kroc patting me on the head. MY OLD McDonald's in Aurora, Illinois, has been replaced by a new one. The manager said old faithful just got tired and sagged in 1981. My new hometown McDonald's, in Washington, D.C., is much different. I have to wend my way through the street people in the subway to reach it. But when I get there, my friend Felipe, a Salvadoran refugee born with only one arm, will serve me with a smile. He wants to go to Hamburger University someday and become a manager. After that, he'd like to own a franchise. I'm a McDonald's stockholder now -- a little one, but a stockholder just the same. My broker had me buy last fall when things looked bad on Wall Street. ''No matter what else happens,'' he told me, ''people are still going to eat at McDonald's.'' I'm sure I will. Someday when I'm tired and gray, I hope I'm like today's McDonald's -- way too old to be looking so good. I know they'll follow my age group to the end. One day I'll shuffle in, and there it will be up on the menu: McOatmeal.

CHART: INVESTOR'S SNAPSHOT McDONALD's

SALES $5.1 BILLION (latest four quarters) CHANGE FROM YEAR EARLIER UP 16%

NET PROFIT $568 MILLION CHANGE UP 5%

RETURN ON COMMON STOCKHOLDER'S EQUITY 19% FIVE-YEAR AVERAGE 20%

STOCK PRICE RANGE $31.38-$61.13 (last 12 months)

RECENT SHARE PRICE $45.13

PRICE/EARNINGS MULTIPE 15 TOTAL RETURN TO INVESTORS 16% (12 months to 6/3)