A Short Time Ago

In my nostalgia-infused mind, my home town was sort of a classic small town setup. There was the town common with the town hall situated on one end. The other three sides were surrounded by stores.

In my idealized memory, everything was awesome. There was a movie theater, a toy store, a couple of records stores, a couple of pharmacies, news stands - and more. Way back, in what I consider the “classic era”, we even had a Woolworths and for a while, a Grants.

With the exception of the movie theater, most of those places were long gone by the time I moved away. Many years ago, and many, many years after I moved, the movie theater, not only closed, but was demolished. I guess it was hard to keep afloat without me spending Mom and Dad’s hard earned money at their concession stand.

One thing our town didn’t have was a mall. Malls were kind of a new thing way back then. And while our town didn’t have one, there was one in the neighboring town - a mere fifteen minute drive away.

Where I lived, fifteen minutes was actually considered a bit of a jaunt, especially since you could walk into town in about the same amount of time. But shopping at the mall was well worth it. All of the stores were conveniently located on one floor. There was a Bradlees, a bunch of clothing stores, a Woolworths, a toy store... and... now that I think about it, other than being under one roof, it wasn’t a whole lot different than shopping in town.

But it seemed cooler, and if you were intending to do a lot of intense looking around with nothing better to do, this was a pretty good place to be - even if Mom or Dad did have to drive me over.

Not long after this mall opened up, a much larger, Mega-Mall opened up. This Mega-Mall was about a forty minute drive from where we lived. (This is based on the 1960’s traffic flow. Nowadays, the ride is probably closer to three days.)

Back then, it wasn’t called a Mega-Mall and it wouldn’t come close to qualifying as one today, but compared to the other mall, that’s what it was. The Mega-Mall had many of the same stores as the small mall, but it also had a Jordan Marsh on one end and a Filene’s on the other. In between, it had a ton of other stores. In fact, there were so many stores, they had to make the mall Two Entire Floors High! (Yes, you read that correctly.)

I’m not sure how many times we went to this Mega-Mall. I don’t think it was a lot. I only remember going there three times. Of those three visits, one was when I was older - but the other two times were family trips, when I was much younger.

For both of those two visits, Dad was the one who drove us. To this day, I'm still trying to comprehend the fact that Dad would actually drive us forty minutes - to a mall - and not just once, but at least twice!

Anyway, of those three Mega-Mall visits, one of them took place just before Christmas, in 1968.

I remember the mall being so packed that it was hard to get around. The stores, the halls, even the escalators were crammed with people. Everything in the mall was brightly lit and holiday garland was draped from the railings and over the storefronts.

In one of the stores, I think it was Filene’s, I remember watching something called a “Newton’s Cradle” (though I didn't know the name of it back then). At the time, these things seemed to be pretty popular. My teacher had one and Mr. Harris, from the Science Center, had one too. And even though my teacher had one, I still thought it was pretty cool (and no, I don’t want one).

But what I particularly remember is that the Beatles “White Album” had just been released. I remember standing there, in front of the record store, staring at this album through the window, all the while, people bumped into, and squeezed by me. It wasn’t that I was terribly interested in the album, but there was a lot of talk about it at the time. I remember it being kind of a big deal.

I've often thought of that visit, and I’m reminded of it now because this album has just been reissued and it’s been in the news a lot lately - at least the news I listen to. One of the things mentioned is that this reissue falls on the fiftieth anniversary of the original release.

It’s hard for me to believe that this memory of a particular night, a night while Christmas shopping, is from fifty years ago. As odd as it sounds, the memory, or at least, the feelings from the memory, seem like it wasn't that long ago.

But fifty years - is fifty years a long time?

Fifty years ago I would have been twelve years old. And if I was only twelve years old, then that means I would have been starting junior high.

I was a little kid in junior high.

Strange. When I think back on it, it doesn't feel that way. But I guess that's what it was. I guess that's where I was.

What's even stranger is that, when I was little, I always thought that fifty years seemed like a long, long time - but now that I'm older, I find that it really isn't that long, after all.