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ROSE’S MARKET

ordered a cup of coffee. Forgive me for sounding like an old fart, but this was back when sugar was sugar! And instead of the generic white packets you see today that generally just say “Domino” or some other major food brand or distributor,you got personalized packages with the name and address of the business on it, and perhaps a logo, maybe even a tiny, postage-stamp-sized work of art. (Remember postage stamps? Yeah, I collected those, too.) Back then, sugar packets were a lot like matchbooks used to be up until everyone quit smoking in bars: An advertisement for the business, as well as a memento from where you had been. And I grew up in Maryland. It wasn’t like growing up in New Orleans, where I live now, where going out to restaurants is part of the cultural fabric of life. When I was a kid, going out to eat was a Big Deal. Going out to eat marked a special occasion or, even better, a family vacation. So the sugar packets I pocketed at restaurants became markers of the major events of my youth: Road trips, holidays, the beach, the mountains, family reunions, sporting events, graduations, weddings and, yes, even funerals. I loved the little stories the sugar packets told. The little pictures. The names of the restaurants. And more than anything — the place names: Wilmington, Delaware; Ocean City, Maryland; Seaside, New Jersey; The Chesapeake Bay; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Mahoney City, Pennsylvania; Canton, Ohio and Cooperstown, New York — those last two representing trips my dad took us to the Football and Baseball Halls of Fame. Who wouldn’t want to remember all of that with … sugar packets? OK, like I said: I was a bit strange. But they came from highway diners and roadside shanties and fake log cabins and waterfront seafood shacks and motel lounges. I thought these places were really sexy, although I’m sure I would have used a different term back then. But they appealed to me, that Roadside

Americana thing. And I truly cannot tell you how and why I decided to mark these occasions with sugar packets; maybe I couldn’t afford postcards? I don’t know. I saved them for the same reason people save anything: They spoke to me.They told me a story, my story. They affirmed that my life was rich with family, travel and adventure. They were poignant, although admittedly unusual, mementos of a life well lived. The sugar packets I saved told the story of my life, a diary of the places I went and the trips I took and the people I met. I mounted them in the stamp collecting albums my parents had given me to help me start that hobby. But I put off stamp collecting for a few years. The way I saw it, stamps told stories about faraway places that I would probably never see. Postage stamps told the story of other peoples’ lives, not mine. I amassed a pretty large sum of sugar packets in my youth. Leafing through my catalogues late at night under a desk lamp when I was supposed to be in bed — it made me happy. And then things got weird. • • •

but you have to remember that things were different back then. First off, there weren’t so many chain restaurants. And local diners and eateries displayed a bit more personal touch and individualistic pride than you often see today. Nothing was generic. Including sugar packets. This was a time before all those pink, blue and yellow sugar-substitutes started competing for your attention when you

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