Y’all probably think I’m a ridiculous sap, but I just want to say that I’m despondent over East Town Mall closing. Even though its glory days are more than a decade past, I’ll never forget the good ol’ days of walking around in a pack of best girlfriends all day Saturday, giggling and looking cool in our stone washed Guess jeans with layered slouch socks, crimped hair scraped back into neon scrunchies, and an armful of jelly bracelets every color of the rainbow. We’d hit 5-7-9 and Merry Go Round first, then the music store (singles tapes!), fawn over the puppies and kittens in the pet store, then maybe have a slice of pizza in the food court. We’d get mildly freaked out by the weird witchy stuff in Crystal Visions, check out clothes in Express and Limited, try on leather pants in Wilson’s Leather, buy some glitter nail polish from Claire’s, and pretend we were punk enough to pull off the tank tops in Rave. We’d point at boys with their long skater hair and follow them around till they went in the game store behind the waterfall. We’d go smell erasers in Hello Kitty and widen our eyes at the displays in the windows of Fredericks of Hollywood then make for Victoria Secret, pretending we were just there for lotion. We’d share pretzels or dippin’ dots and laugh ourselves silly when we saw someone with toilet paper stuck to their shoes. We made fun of the Oriental families who always seemed to be there, because we had never heard people talk like that in East Tennessee. No trip to the mall was complete without a visit to Spencer’s to see all the racy gag gifts.
We’d catch a movie at the cinema and finally meet whichever mom drove us at the entrance to Dillard’s at the prescribed hour… because back then somebody had to be the designated watch wearer. There was no texting to see where you were, or let whoever know you were running late. You simply set a time, and you had to be there- or be square!

#ohthegoodoledays 1993 4-evr