I had an hour to kill in this little town I'm in today, with nothing more I could really accomplish before heading out, and the mall was close by, so I went in just to walk around. I typically dislike malls, as their main purpose is to enable shopping, and I dislike shopping. Still, I was drawn to the nostalgia of it, remembering a time as a kid when malls were exciting.

This mall looked like most any not-so-large town mall that was built in the 80s, one floor, department stores at either end and maybe one somewhere in the middle, beige floor tile, off-white ceiling tile - the ones that show water spots every so often, and skylights intermittently. It's gone through its share of face-lifts, I'm sure, because it's not at all dingy, but just looks tired. Many of the stores sit empty, with the chain doors down. The music is quiet - it can be because there's so little hustle and bustle for it to compete with. Almost no center kiosks are open. They sit bare, stripped of the silly little brightly colored wares meant to attract teens. Even the cell phone kiosks are empty. So few shops remain it seems. The two jewelry places are occupied only by the employees in them, as are most of the smaller boutiques.

I sit here looking around, imagining it being like I remember the University Mall was when I was a 13 year old kid, down on vacation to grandma's. Back then, I'm sure, the arcade wasn't closed, there were a few toy stores where I'd have wanted to stop to look at all the Ninja Turtle action figures, the food court had more than just the Chinese place open.

My mind's eye can almost see the time-lapse montage of it going from its heyday in the 90s, with people up and down its halls, to the shop doors closing one by one, not to open again, the kiosk bling coming down and the lights being unplugged, now "filled" with elderly mall-walkers, and your odd 20-something kid with either one thing he came for specifically, or nothing at all, because she doesn't have anything better to do.

Sigh. That was all a quarter of a century ago. So much you can't go back to. You're happy the memories are there, you're even happy there are still such places to jog those memories, but you're wistful knowing that what you see now isn't what it was, and won't ever be again.