Syrup bottles and scapegoats

On the Cracker Barrel dust-up, the N.C. doctor bill blow-up, and our internet habit of casting villains where we need grownups.

Family vacations growing up usually meant heading down I-40 west into Tennessee, then up toward Lexington to see my grandparents. We’d peel off the highway somewhere outside Knoxville and, more often than not, land at Cracker Barrel.

My routine never changed: Play a little checkers, get an order of pancakes just for the tiny syrup bottles, then take one last lap through the store to angle for a harmonica or a railroad cap.

Your Cracker Barrel story is probably similar. Most of us over a certain age have one, and that’s why the new logo gained so much attention. If you somehow managed to miss it, here’s the short version: Management axed the classic old-timer and barrel for a plain wordmark on that golden background, and a slice of the right branded it a woke capitulation.

In a era where everything is a marketing ploy, nostalgia is so hot right now.

But the thing about nostalgia is that it’s just a feeling — it isn’t real. A few years ago I took my own crew to Cracker Barrel for my birthd…