My generation grew up and socialized via the mall. Malls were a pretty important place for shopping and socializing. Kids now a days (oh my gosh I sound old!) just text each other-- back in the 80's a teen had to go where all the teens hung out to check each other out. Saturday nights, if you weren't at the skating rink, was reserved for walking around in groups of at least 4 to try to catch the eye of a handsome young man also walking around with his group of buddies. Now, they use social media. We also went shopping if we wanted or needed an object. An entire day could be spent walking and searching for the perfect outfit or home decoration, taking a friend along to proclaim SHOP TIL WE DROP! Now, we use online shopping. Which has created a sad (at least for me it is) reality for the state of malls today. Much fewer are needed and some really beautiful and awesome malls have been left abandoned or torn down since it just couldn't keep up.
Large department stores have gone belly up and now it looks as if Sears and JCPenney are coming dangerously close to giving up the ghost also.
All this to say that my local mall where I took my son from the time he could walk is shut down and is being sited for demolition come spring. We walked through it on Halloween October 31st 2016 the last day it would be open. I cried. A lot. More than I care to admit. Not necessarily because I loved this mall but because its saying that the time where a mall was so much a part of our culture is no longer relevant and maybe that means that me and my generation are no longer relevant. It makes me sad that my son has no interest in doing the very thing I couldn't get enough of. Simple times together walking around the mall, talking, laughing and just enjoying time together. Let's go hang out at the mall just isn't said anymore and to me that's sad. Times they are a changin'.
Here's some pictures of this old girl of a mall that I hope to never forget.
Eric 50, Ashton just getting ready to turn 15.
Memories of stores that just don't cut it in this techy age.
Before we had cell phones we used these to call mom to say Come pick me up or Can I go to the movies?
Eric and the mall directory-- you know, in case you get lost.
This space has been a bar, I think it was a phone place for a while, but it ended as a mega church wanna be called The Living Room
Here's the food court-- by the time they closed only 1 food place was still open. Really there were only maybe three stores still open when they closed down. Everyone else had already taken there stores out.
This was a Books a million for a long time however it closed as a novelty shop.
This was a FYE.
Main hallway of the mall.
This was a small pitiful arcade. Wow do I miss an arcade!
Ashton posing with one of the last remaining obviously abandoned games in the arcade.
Old cement planter - unfortunately full of trash most of the time.
And there it is-- all I have left of the mall. It was great. My worry is now that Sears and JCPenney are having troubles that will be 2 of 3 anchor stores that will close down in the Apple Blossom Mall. Now that- THAT is my mall. That's where I spent my weekends and ran around with my friends. That is where I played at the arcade and went to the movies. They renovated it so it doesn't look the same but at least its still standing and has good business. I hope my mall doesn't get closed down-- that will be a day of more tears.
Until Next Time.
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