Parkwood Mall

I missed yesterday, I know, and it made me sad to put a big black X over the square.

Back in November, the owners of the Wilson Mall in my town announced that they would be closing and demolishing the inside portion to develop it into an open shopping center. Some stores and the theater will stay. The rest of it's going.

I have to admit, I kinda saw this coming. When they updated the mall in 2005, in hopes of attracting businesses, the mall had been on a steady decline for a few years. It was old, mostly empty, and pretty sketchy. People stopped going because the neighborhood isn't great.

But back in the day, it was our mall, and it was pretty cool.

My earliest memories include Santa Claus, the talking Rudolph, the only Chick-fil-A in town then, a pizza place, an arcade, and the Stride Rite, which had Yoshi in the window. I used to think that Parkwood Mall (the old name) was the coolest thing ever because it had a toy store.

In sixth grade, I once hung out with friends there, on a Sunday. We were allowed to walk around by ourselves. That was huge for me. The bookstore, B. Dalton, even had the really cool American Girl books. Sometime soon after that, we got a Bath and Body Works store. The sight of that red checkered awning was pretty awesome, because that was a store that went to bigger malls, not little Parkwood.

When I started reading the Jedi Apprentice book series in seventh grade, I'd always go to B. Dalton in the mall to get the newest one. Books-a-Million never had them. B. Dalton always did.

I bought accesosories at Claire's and eyeshadow at Bath and Body Works (remember the makeup in the silver containers? I loved that stuff.) I had my makeup done once, for fun, at the Clinique counter in Belk's. I even *gasp* used a tanning bed a few times. My first pair of glasses, and my first pair of contacts, came from the Sears in the mall.

An especially vivid memory is one of my birthday parties. A few of my friends had slept over the night before, and the next day, my mom dropped us off at Parkwood (so grownup, right?) to roam a little. We saw a limo parked outside the entrance, and asked the driver who was in it. He answered, with a smirk, Michael Jackson. We rushed inside to see if we could catch a glimpse of someone that famous in our little mall. Obviously, that didn't happen. It still makes me smile. By then, the mall was beginning to look a little worn. We went to one of those sketchy stores down near the arcade, and my friends tried on some trashy clothes (jeans with big cutouts and stuff. It was fun to laugh at.)

The theater held on for a good long while. That was the theater that had three rooms (one very skinny), an old lobby, and sticky floors that you never could quite see. My dad saw Star Wars there, and I'm pretty sure my parents' first date was there. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring, among many others, at Parkwood Theater, and in 2003, went to an R-rated movie for the first time, without an adult present. (The Matrix Revolutions, in case you're wondering.) They tore it down a few years later. I remember this particularly cloudy day, before the building was gone, where the marquee just said "Closed." I'd half-grown up in that theater, and though the one we have now is much newer and much nicer, I was a little sad to see it go. There's a McDonald's there now.

Though the worsening economy, the bad neighborhood (gang activity pushed many customers away), and nearness of Wilson to Raleigh (with its great shopping) probably made the closing of Parkwood Mall inevitable, it is bittersweet. I made memories there, ones that still make me smile, ones that make up my story and shape my life. As bad as the mall got, there at the end, it wasn't always that bad. I believe in this case, what used to be is a perfectly fine thing to reminisce about.

A Revolution

I have always been a mouthy individual. My first stark memory of it is when I was about eight years old, when, in reply to my mom going "shut your mouth" (most likely because I was talking back) I proceeded to hang my jaw open and say, "Aaaah, it's open."

I still do tend towards a disposition of difficulty and sarcasm. Yes, age and experience have given me tact. I think before I say stuff now.

But I never thought that anonymously expressing a legitimate concern on this blog would bring me under an eye of scrutiny so intrusive, it's almost scary.

If anyone would like to see the original, very frustrated, blog post, please let me know privately. I've taken it down because I apparently can't trust my own city to stay out of my business.

In the post, among other things, I criticized a certain service in my city. The posting went unnoticed, except by a few readers, for a good two weeks. It mentioned the name of the service, the type of business where I was employed, and possibly the name of my town. It never included my name, first or last. After the post, I forgot about it, except for when I'd see the name of it in the blog's stat rankings.

A week later, I put the link to it on my Facebook account, which is private. Only my Facebook friends can see it. All of those people are individuals that I know personally. Old college friends. Old roommates (who are close friends.) People I went to high school with. Most of them don't live in the area.

The next day, I made the admittedly unwise decision to use my cell phone to tweet at my city's Twitter account, using some rather harsh words concerning the very service I criticized two weeks earlier. They maintained that this service was reliable and all that. I deleted my tweets and forgot about it for the rest of the day.

And then the next afternoon, while I was hanging some posters, my boss came up to me and said that someone from the city had called and complained about, well, my complaint. Somehow they had used my name on my Twitter account, read my blog and gone back at least to the post where announced the release of Horror Vacui, which has my name on the cover, and possibly even further. Whatever happened, my blog got a whole lot of page views that day, consistently to the same two-week old post. Thankfully the employer just asked that I not criticize this particular service at work. Not too gruesome. The callers were even told they went too far.

Yes, they did go too far. I have since blocked their Twitter account from seeing mine, removed all references to any of my jobs from Facebook, and took a week off from writing this blog. Someone played detective and poked around and called my job, intending, I'm sure, to harass me because I don't love everything my town does.

I remember once when a representative from a union showed up at my house, first saying that he was there to check the windows. Then he came back later, to encourage my mom to "vote the right way" when the day came to decide if the place she worked would have a union or not.

Oh buddy, you don't even know. We don't take well to intimidation in my family.

I don't know who it was who went to such great lengths to deduce who I am and where I worked. But I know you're out there. I don't know if you're reading this. Obviously you had a link to it, somehow. Whoever you are, your mental bicep is flesh, and honey, it's much weaker than the iron in my backbone.

There's nothing worse than an angry Twentysomething that you just won't leave be. As old as you are, as connected as you are, it is my generation that you will one day hand things over to, and all your local, backroom, old boy politics won't matter a bit.

So leave me alone. I'll give you one very, very good reason, by way of a quote from The Dark Knight Rises.

I'm not afraid.

I'm angry.

It's Got to be On Purpose

I opened the local paper recently to a story about a local comic book artist, Brian Wingrove (here's his site!)

My post is not on this. It's more about the local paper in question. Now really, I have nothing but love for the publication. It's pretty informative, if small, but I still read it mornings at work and try to see what's going on in town. Even though the size has shrunk in the past years (like literally the paper is not as wide) I continue to be a reader.

But dang, they suck at proofreading. 

I think it has been getting better lately. Maybe. The writing's certainly improved, because they used to have one article writer who probably could have used a writing class. I haven't seen her name lately, but when her work appeared in the paper, a typical paraphrased quote looked like this.

"Mr. Smith said that his wife had said that her aunt said that the intruder had shown up around dinnertime."

And see, that's okay. Easy mistake, just takes a little work to correct.

It gets better.

There's also the section for letters to the editor, written of course by the community, on various topics. I will never forget the one that was printed a couple of years ago.

The letter was praising this medical facility for being so helpful and caring during a patient's last days. She'd had a terminal illness and the family was sincerely thanking the staff at this place.

According to the paper, the deceased was afflicted with lunch disease.

I must say, I have never heard of lunch disease.

Okay, you say. Typo. Sure. Someone was hungry when they typed that.

Now, Brian Wingrove's comic series is called "Intermezzo" and is a reference to the humorous content. This short article that appeared in the paper had a picture of Mr.Wingrove holding up a couple of copies of his comic, upon which is clearly printed "Intermezzo" across the top. In big letters. Yellow ones.

And sure enough, next to the picture in the paper, they talk about his Intermezza comic series.

That is not a thing.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that it's done on purpose, to add "charm" and "quirk" to the local paper.

I applied once for a proofreading position and was never called.

I like to think it's because my resume was too perfectly spelled.

Fun With Felony Arrests

Fried Slice: Fun with Felony Arrests!

Since the election of a new sheriff in 2010, our local newspaper, the Wilson Times, has been listing felony arrests at least once a week. This includes names, pictures, and the offense for which an individual was arrested. It's always pretty interesting to read. Most of the offenses are for stuff like, obtaining property under false pretense, or possession of a substance. And yeah, it's never three or four pictures. There's a real crime problem in my hometown, and I'm grateful for the new sheriff taking care of it. He's doing a great job of cleaning up our little wretched hive of scum and villainy.*

But it's the pictures that always get me.

They're not particularly sad, or tragic. Usually one of two facial expressions appears.

First there's annoyance.

And understandably so. These individuals were hoping not to get caught, and they did. Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but basically, a simple concept.

Then there's the ones who have a mixture of embarrassment and shame.

 

Also understandable. Things might have moved too fast in life, and before they knew it, they're in deep water and they never meant to be. Oops, right? YOu've probably seen faces like that if your local paper does like ours.

But, as with anything, there's always the inexplicable third group. It's a fringe that I personally will never understand in any instance it occurs.

Once in a while, among the sullen faces in the felony arrests section, there's some clown with this face.

I really don't get this one. People with this face are apparently convinced that they are indeed getting their portrait done. There's no hint of sarcasm in their expressions. They're just thrilled to have been arrested. Just happy to be here, they say, 'cause life is gooooooood my friend.

Ah, the idyllic South. Nice, ain't it?






*Yep, went there. Don't judge.