But when I am back in Minnesota? It's a balance. It's looking at (and searching for) the new, but really wanting to hit what's still behind, to think back to a time...no specific time, it shifts by location. I wrote over a decade ago (sheesh...well, on second thought, that sounds about right) about how all the old haunts were disappearing. There was less and less pull to return, or so I thought. There were new places to discover, of course, but even those around me felt put on the spot when I suggested "a new place."
If I can find anything that ties to the swank days (and, on top of that, a touchstone of my youth) it's enough for a visit. Upon arrival it was easy to have the run of the joint because...well, unlike decades ago, I had the run of the joint. Not that there was an abundance of reasons for anyone else to show up.
It wasn't that the mall was truly empty. At least I don't think so...there were a lot of cars...but a lot of open stores. A LOT. Either the landlord is looking for a ton of cash (more than it's actual value)...I suppose that's one end of the spectrum. Whatever the other end has to be here. I looked left and right, and I was the only one around. I walked from one end to the center...and still, no one arrived.
I'm not the quickest draw...in no way was I expecting anything to be the same. The curiosity was more on how it evolved. Apparently, I was the only one who cared.
It was very grown up to leave the house without supervision. You went in the back entrance (where teens smoked stuff known and unknown, and you walked past them, making you just as cool). You could go to the right, and amble down there, just either walk or check out a few places. Well...Great Clips, here all these years later. How about that. In the 80s, a large video store arrived. I know it made it through the 90s...it's where I found Incoming Freshmen, a drive-in movie that stunned people for years.
There's still a restaurant on the end, a "brewpub" now (of course). Remember the old place with those amazing homemade cookies? They were huge! (sigh)
So I headed back to the other end, seeing that action near the liquor store and supermarket was still there. As placeholders, that hasn't changed after decades. The rest...well, here's a place. A spa. I think that was a bike shop. And it had been a computer store too, I think. A girl who worked there walked out, talking to someone on the phone about a much more interesting topic. I was walking the other way, anticipating a look of "how'd a person get in here?" but I was allowed my memory lane haze.
There's a hardware store now (in a strip mall, unusual) inside. Heh..."now," like I'd know. I could wander in there, but I don't really need anything. I felt glad it was there, though I have no idea why.
That night, post-meal with relatives, we started talking of the origins of the legendary Tailgate Dip...and then how the specific Tailgate itself came to be...an interesting and hilarious tale of the "old days" and a lot of drinking and an era of just going for it. These were college kids and adults. The college kids, some of them (in their late 50s now) are still around. Most of the adults are long gone. To a child, the adults were amazing people: men who looked older than they were, who seemed to be in the middle of the party 24/7 no matter the location. The conversation took a lull and I couldn't help but feeling a combination of melancholy and "well, that's how it goes."
So, the day of leaving, told that the Old Dutch chips would be shipped to you as a taste of the "old country" (read: oh no they won't), I started to reconcile that I just wanted the old neighborhood to do well...as it did by me 30 years ago.
But when I left the mall, I thought "beyond the people that own this place, I'm the only one who cares." But if I came back next time and it was long gone...would I really get bent out of shape? No. I don't live there, no one I know lives right by there.
The memories would be in tact. The photos would remain. Isn't that it, the sum of its parts? An amalgamation of cherry-picked moments to cover the mundane, stresses, strife and abuse that was real life?
That a very real, tangible thing still stands to send me back...a very thing that, in 2019, doesn't have a website. Well there you go - it really is 198x, or whatever, and it's my domain.
