THE MALL

Well, I went to a mall today. I wanted to walk and it was too cold for me to do it outside so I became a mall-walker...goes with the age, I guess. I just wish I could go to a mall, have a walk, appreciate that it's there for me and that's it. And no, it doesn't matter which mall it was. Just choose a mall, any mall pretty much.

The mall...a symbol of what went wrong with the "marketplace." It was so disturbing to me...so depressing. Each store urged me to purchase some item with an after Christmas percent off this or that item.
This type of marketplace is so far from what it's original purpose was supposed to be. We need certain things to live...that's a given but god almighty! do we need all the crap that is offered at the mall?

I know I sound cynical and angry and really I'm not. I'm just deeply disappointed that we've come here to this shallow, meaningless, empty place in our society.

I felt like a hollow person, a number, a consumer while walking around the mall. I guess, really it's not that different from any store in the country these days. I feel the same way on the very rare occasion of visiting a Walmart.
Oddly, I don't feel that way at Target or Whole Foods or even at a thrift store and they probably have as many tchotchkes and junk as any mall. I don't know...I just felt really disconnected during my mall-walk...that'll teach me to go walking at the mall, by golly.

I visited the new Schnucks store on Manchester near 270 today and perked up after my depressing mall visit.
It was so obvious how they'd tried to look like Whole Foods. And, they did have some organic foods, freshly made pizzas, extensive deli, cheese area and wine shop, etc. But, you can tell that the soul is not there.
Thank God for John Mackey and Mike Gilliland for having the conviction and heart and energy to open the original Whole Foods and Wild Oats...they did it because it meant something deeply-felt to them.
I'm thinking that Schnucks did it more 'cause they could see which side of their bread was spread with dollar signs...As Bob says, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Ho hum!

Be that as it may, I still enjoyed browsing their new store. In fact, I got a cup of soup and some veggie sushi rolls and sat and ate it with gratitude by their merrily burning upstairs fireplace...so, see, it's not all bad.