Articles / A Beloved Snack with a Side of Sentiment

A Beloved Snack with a Side of Sentiment

Published January 19, 2023

Mark ditches the Impala and heads south for good times and an addictive favorite


A lifetime ago, before I had children or real jobs, my not-quite-yet wife Karen and I set off for points south with our friends Fred and Sherry. We met at Fred’s parents’ house on Long Island, Karen and I limping down from Somerville in some ’63 Chevy or other (we had a series of them, Impalas and Chevelles, all near junkers), one that needed a quart of oil every fifty miles. Fred’s father took one look at it and said “You’re not driving a thousand miles in that?!”

Well, we had nothing else. Maybe Fred and Sherry’s car was no better, I can’t remember, but Fred’s dad just said, “Take my car,” a late-model Cadillac that none of us would want to be seen dead in. Still: Not only did it run, it ran perfectly, and it was roomy and after all there was no pretending we were not middle-class post-college white kids. In fact en route not a few people commented on what nice wheels we were driving.

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