I couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic last week when a wrecking claw tore through the vacant Buckingham Square Mall in Aurora.
As nostalgic as I guess as you can be for a place that equated British ambiance with a decrepit bridge over a water fountain and a wing of shops called Piccadilly Place which, just as I understand is the case with its actual London namesake, led to a sushi restaurant and a Mervyns.
But, as is the case with so many things, time and penny-pinching ownership ravaged that mall. My last jaunt through there a few years ago didn’t allow the proper time for reflection. I’ll blame my wife whose exact words I believe were, “Let’s get out of here before we get mugged.”
So last week’s demolition wasn’t the heartbreaking goodbye you would expect but rather finding, via the obituary page, an old, long-lost or perhaps estranged friend had passed on.
What that wrecking claw left in a pile of rubble, it couldn’t shatter in memories.
My dad taught me about women at that mall. No, there were no fatherly birds and the bees talks. There was patiently sitting and sitting and sitting and sitting on an unsympathetic wooden bench waiting for my mom to finish shopping at Joslins. We must have spent hours on that bench. But, with due respect for my mom’s shopping, I’ll admit time moves at an agonizingly slow pace as a child. Still, I never needed to know anything more about women and I’m proud to say I don’t.
My dad would grab a handful of change – careful to spare the quarters – for me to toss into the water fountain. One penny at a time I would toss in there with never much thought to where those coins went. In my humanitarian heart, I labored under the delusional it went to sick kids. As my age has lent itself to cynicism, I now believe we bought a lot of sodas for thirsty janitors.
Those now fallen walls held plenty of memories. There was the arcade that my brother dragged me into which had the most sickening smell that was never quite explained. There was the pizza place where my family used to share a big, delicious pie together and there was the bookstore that I got kicked out of for sneaking a peek at a dirty magazine, which I never admitted before now (hormones and curiosity be damned). I eventually went back in there once or twice, always expecting to see a shoddily drawn sketch of myself and the words in bold, black type – “Have you seen this pervert?”
How much time did my family spend at that mall? At one point, we could actually name the janitors. Skinny Bob, who I think was a two six-pack-a-day man, and Fat Al who, judging by those sagging pants, just missed the cut as a plumber.
Those were my family’s times to be together, it wasn’t Yahtzee by the fireside or Saturday morning soccer games – but it was special. And if there was any doubt about where my demented sense of humor came from – well, did your family give their mall janitors pet names?
And like so many things, I don’t think I fully realized until last week, that those times are gone and I won’t get them back. I’ll cherish those memories.
But if I had one more penny to toss for a wish into that coin fountain, I don’t think I need to tell you what that wish would be.
Relief for all parched janitors, of course.
