A Day at the Mall

When the kids were small, we would head down to the mall- maybe once every couple of weeks or so. I didn’t really need anything and it was only on occasion that I bought anything- for myself anyway. It was kind of an adventure.

A typical visit would usually start off by going to K-Mart. The kids would peruse the toys, occasionally demonstrating for me all the different things it could do, which they had most likely learned from the Saturday morning cartoon commercials. Thankfully, we rarely bought anything there. If for some insane reason we did, we would be put through the K-Mart customer service treatment which usually translated into standing in a long line at the only open register while the disgruntled employee paced the current transaction to end at the beginning of her break.

After leaving Kmart, we would stop at the fountain and sit for a few minutes. Sometimes the kids would toss in a penny. Sometimes they would walk or run around the wooden bench seat that circled the fountain. If someone else, besides me, happened to be sitting somewhere on the bench, whomever was doing the walking or running would get within an inch or two of them, stop, stare at this person for a few seconds and then turn and race back to me. If the person was amused by this, this scenario would go on for a while. If the person was a grouch, they would eventually get up and leave, thus opening up the entire track. Either way, it was a win-win.

Once the novelty of the fountain wore off, we would head over to Kaybee Toys where we would examine the toys all over again. But because Kaybee was much better stocked than Kmart, it offered near infinite possibilities so the demonstrations and performances and dreams would be in greater and more varied detail.

Not our store, but close enough (found on buzzfeed)

Usually, if we bought anything from the mall, it would be from Kaybee Toys. Often, the kids would leave with one or two small items- something like a “My Little Pony” or a little action figure,or a “Hot Wheels”- and it would become their treasure for the ride home and the days ahead, and maybe, if it was really special, for the years to come.

After the toy store, we would enter the deafening, seizure inducing arcade. My kids were never too big on pinball or the pixelated video games that were just becoming popular. They seemed to go for the more physical stuff- things like skeeball and Whack-a-Mole and tossing bean bags into the wide mouth of an inflating lady, or shooting small basketballs into a small hoop or playing that thing that had lights that would race around a circle, and you would have to slap a big button to make the light stop in front of you in order to pay out tickets- basically a little kid’s roulette table. We spent quite a bit of time and quarters in that arcade. The kids would come away with a fist full of tickets or some trinkets that they “bought” by cashing in their winnings.

Having worked up an appetite from the arcade, and with their energy now waning, we would stop and get a bite to eat. Once in a rare while, it would be at the Friendly’s, but usually, it was a slice of pizza or some other fine cuisine offered by the ring of vendors that surrounded the plastic seating area.

On the way out, they might get a ride on one of those fiberglass animals or cars- the ones where you would pop in a quarter and the kids would get jostled around for a couple of minutes.

There used to be a ring of these rides down by the entry to the mall. They would often have a “bucking” horse or a bear along with a racing car that bounced more than it raced. In later years, they even had a helicopter that would go about five feet up in the air, then down again.

I used to see these rides around all over the place when the kids were small. Now, I don’t recall having seen them anywhere in years. They certainly aren’t at the mall anymore- they haven’t been there for years. There used to be some outside of Ames and Rich’s department stores, but those stores, like the rides, are gone. Maybe those rides are still out there somewhere and I just don’t have any reason to notice them.

Kmart is long gone from this mall- though it exists in all it’s former glory at other locations. Kaybee Toys died a slow, agonizing death before going bankrupt several years ago, and the arcade is long gone as well. Most of the former food vendors have left, replaced by- I’m not even sure what. Stores like Media Play, which the kids enjoyed when they were a little older, have long ago come and gone.

There are still stores down at the mall, but it seems to me not as many it as there were back then. Walking along the not-so-bustling halls, the strings of stores that are still open are frequently interrupted by stores that are now empty and gone- looking like books missing from a one packed bookshelf.

Gone also are the sounds echoing from the distant arcade, beckoning you with promises of joy and riches in the form of redeemable tokens and tickets.

I don’t get down to the mall very much anymore. When I go, it’s usually because I need something in a hurry. I don’t spend a lot of time there- no browsing or anything like that. I’ll pop into “Target” or “Best Buy” and make a beeline for what I’m after. I’ll make my purchase and head back to my car to go back home again.

I didn’t do a lot of shopping way back then, but it sure was a lot more fun. Here’s a site that has some grainy photos of the place. These shots were taken a little while ago- well past what I'm talking about here, but they're not particularly recent. I wouldn’t consider it a “dead” mall yet- dying maybe, but not quite dead.