Sciolto's will carve the year on the tombstone sometime in the next four weeks (weather permitting).

We tried to find a hobby shop but both of us had forgotten how to get there and we hadn't mapped it out first. So we went back down I-295 and went to the malls.

Rhode Island Mall is just plain sad. Three quarters of it is empty and what's left isn't much. This was the first mall that opened in RI, under the name "Midland Mall," with Sears and Shepard's, one of the big downtown department stores, as anchors. When Shepard's went out of business in 1974, G. Fox from Connecticut moved in. They eventually went out of business, too.

I remember when they opened, they had a funky place that sold glass flowers and other Sixties looking junk. (When that closed down, the Impulse store moved in; they sold only Panasonic products. I got my first VCR there in 1980—it cost $800!) Across from the escalators was a country store with horehound candy. And down on the hallway near Sears was one of the old Docktor's Pet Centers that got in such bad trouble for their treatment of animals and puppy mill puppies. None of the clerks knew how to handle the birds. It always upset me. After I learned to drive my Mom and I went there almost every Friday night. We would come in through Sears so I could play with the touch lamps. :-)

However, we did find a store still open there called The Toy Vault that had all sorts of action figures (Star Wars, Star Trek—including a scene of Picard and Kirk on the horses from Generations that I'd never seen before)—and other SF material, plus sports action figures and models. There was a bobble head doll of Rudy Guiliani. Also collectors' cards—they still had card packets with the stick of Topps bubblegum in them!

A few months back one of our friends did us a favor; at this store I saw something that figuratively screamed "Buy me for Charles Rutledge!" So I did. :-)

Then we abandoned the ghost town and went across the road to Warwick Mall. We had ice cream at Newport Creamery and strolled Waldenbooks and the FYE (DVDs, CDs and tapes) store. I am becoming increasingly morose about having to leave. I can always come back to visit, but it will never be home again.

::sigh:: Time to have dinner.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:19:00 PM

Comments:

Linda: Always, always know that Rhode Island will forever be your home. Structures change, much like the contents of the Rhode Island Mall. Sometimes they even change ownership, but the memories and the past experiences will never change, and they will always be yours. Family is still family (warts and all - :O)I remember someone writing, not so long ago, that she was not so much tied to the "stuff" as she was to the memories. I think you know her. Stay well, and in touch.

# posted by  Anonymous : 9:18:00 PM

 

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