WALKING NOSTALGIC
Jonathan Redhorse

Concerned friends, family, and on-call professionals often suggest that I venture outside my domicile to get some much needed fresh air. So today I took their advice and walked to a shopping mall close to my place. I rarely frequent it, but when I do, I take pride in remembering that it was built on top of a personal historic landmark.

In kindergarten, my classmates and I were rounded up and transported via bus to a big field. I can’t really remember the reason for the Wild West-oriented theme of this gathering, but I recall that we were all dressed as cowboys and cowgirls. Activities included having showdowns with water-guns, inspecting farm animals, branding our initials in wood (in the back of my closet is a horseshoe nailed to a wooden board, with the letters ‘XT’ inexplicably burned into it) and dancing the chicken dance, which, if you’ve never performed it, is an amazingly grueling process. I don’t know what the chicken dance had to do with the Wild West. It was a frequent activity for our class though, so I presume it had some sort of point, forgotten along with the point of the field trip. It was years before I knew that field trips didn’t necessarily take you to a field. All I’ve learned from the experience (you are always supposed to learn something from school activities) is that when you reflect on your salad days, you’ll realize that they’ve been bull-dozed over and replaced by retail shops.

Did I mention that I don’t have a cell phone? I say it so often that I often forget to whom I have mentioned this fact. I don’t have a cell phone. You have one? I’m sure that works out very well for you. I just can’t stand to talk to people on phones. I’m not trying to be a rebellious Luddite, I just don’t like the idea of having anything beeping or oscillating on my person. I imagine it must be like someone tugging on your shirt all the time. Like paying someone regularly to tug on your shirt. Several sales representatives stationed at kiosks throughout the mall asked me if I had one. I’d tell them no and they’d thrust an assortment into my face. I’d react in horror as the miniature mechanical shirt-tugging goblins stared at me through their little number pads. Beebobbadoop, they said. Where was I? I’ve lost myself.

The mall is a very crowded place. I’m told that people form walking clubs and walk around the mall before it opens to get exercise before the crowds arrive. I even saw a sign that advertised as much. “Join the ‘Westport Mall Walking Club,” it read. Displaying journalistic initiative, I asked the mall’s Visitor Center representative what sort of people walked around shopping malls for exercise. “Why do you suppose they do it?” I asked. Before she had a chance to answer, I posited my own theory: that these mall-walkers were once young mall-rats, waxing nostalgic for a simpler time before the newer generation of mall rats weren’t stalking the hallowed halls. She gave me a weird look.

You can do anything in a mall. You can eat, watch a movie or get a massage. There is a kiosk in my mall where you can play 1980s videogames. I cannot play any video game made after 1995. It’s difficult to stay focused with so much going on. How do these kids do it? Oh, the cacophony; the random flashing; the mammoth control mechanisms. I’d like to see a video game eerily modeled on real life. I’d like to think I could get a high score making small talk in artificial crowds. Your onscreen persona might receive one-ups for eating veggies and avoiding fatty foods. Do people avoid fatty foods anymore? What’s all this about carbs? I’d like to think there’d be a bonus level where you run an obstacle course to find a restroom. Kids today would probably flout the rules and aim at passers-by. I thought Joust was a very good video game. At the mall there was a LEGO store and inside the world looked pixilated.

I never got around to buying anything at the mall, so I can’t tell you about my purchases. I could pretend if it makes you feel better: I got a great deal on tube socks; here’s a commando watch that was 50% off; and look, I bought you this lovely card written in Japanese—I forgot to ask what it said, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t something deeply philosophical. Hope you think of me whenever you come across it among your treasures.

© Jonathan Redhorse 2005

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