Love the stuff about your mom, and especially that little feeling of victory when you find something that makes her happy w/o making you crazy or leading to an argument. Yup.
Being an old man and technophobe, Mike, I put this comment in the general substack comments. Here's take 2....I hit three points of conttact with your post.
(1) Nice description of downtown Indy. When I stay downtown, i prefer the Conrad. My sister gets me a nice discount from she was an HR manager there.
(2) When i was a kid in suburban Pittsburgh in the 70s, my equivalent of Wanamakers was Kauffmann's. They had a killer candy counter that smelled of chocotae, popcorn and nuts. I can still smell it.
(3) My first home after leaving hoem to practice law in 1989 was at the Corners At Echelon. Decent apartment, a few eagles lived there. And the mall was just great. Sad to see it die.
Mike, your essay on your mom was beautiful, familiar and so nostalgic.
We are about the same age and I grew up in Cherry Hill, so the Echelon Mall part was especially enjoyable to read.
There were 3 major malls we went to in the 1980s.....Cherry Hill, Moorestown and Echelon (Deptford was there, but slightly further away and less convenient to get to). For me personally, Echelon was my favorite. Loved the food court. Loved the sun shining down onto the 2nd floor through the windows. Loved the B Dalton! Hated Sam Goody (overpriced). There always seemed to be baseball card shows happening there. I vividly remember a record show where you were able to purchase bootleg cassettes. And everyone from my high school (Cherry Hill East) seemed to hang out and/or work at the mall.
Echelon Mall is of course dead. Cherry Hill is alive but feel empty and soulless. Moorestown Mall, which ironically was a bit of a joke to us as teenagers cause it was so small, seems to be thriving, but I admit I have not been in there in a few years.
Also, yes as a kid, I also got bored and hid in the clothing racks with my younger brother while my mom shopped and shopped and shopped.
And yes, now, I take my mom to Shop Rite twice a month to help her do her "big" food shopping since she is unable to do this on her own (but full credit to mom for still being able to live on her own). Grocery shopping with my mom is painful, and I will admit not being as patient as I should at times. But of course, I am lucky that my mom is still around, and doing this errand with her is a very small payback for everything she has done for me.
Thanks for sharing! Deptford was actually the go-to mall for Madonna Wannabe girls and IROC guys. It is still there, helped by a bowling alley. Cherry Hill Mall is ringed by a parking lot full of dragons.
I go to Moorestown occasionally because my wife likes the movie theater. It is D-E-D, dead. Last time happened to be on a Thursday night and it was a ghost town.
I also grew up in Cherry Hill (and Mike and I are the same age), and the Echelon Mall was my favorite of the local malls for the reasons you mentioned (I also attended Cherry Hill East). My mom still lives in Cherry Hill and I'm not too far away so I can help when needed, but she's a bit younger than Mike's mom (early 70s) and still active (more so than me!) and enjoys doing food shopping. My help is more of a tech support role.
If you're still in the market, Mike, here's this: After several years, my wife got tired of yelling at me and ordered me to get hearing aids. I recommend Costco. $1,500 includes exam. Great service. And, on another subject, since you claimed that football players can't carry a tune and you also claim not to have a topic for April Fool's Day . . . here ya go: "The Green Bay Packers Sin A Capella in 'Pitch Perfect 2' and Other Football and Popular Culture Mash-Ups (Though No Wardrobe Malfunctions)."
McAfee is a clown, but he is an excellent clown. Witness his fantastic timing and delivery in the "Let A Naysayer Know" incident on ESPN. The problem is that the clown started to take himself seriously, and the enormous problem is that many others started to take the clown seriously as well, but this problem is hardly exclusive to McAfee.
Also, between my affection for both retail therapy and scrapple-and-eggs, I might be Mike's mom.
I'm in the UK. I was aware of McAfee from the ESPN website (not paywalled here!) and from his WWE connections. Now WWE is on Netflix, I can watch it for free and my God, the guy is the most ear-bleedingly awful commentator I've ever heard. How did an irritating-voiced ex-punter(!) become such a huge media thing?
The first time I saw McAfee on TV I wondered why he was dressed in a Vanilla Ice starter kit. Still wondering
LOLOL
Those same racks of slacks and skirts and slips still made for amazing adventures in the early ‘90s!
Love the stuff about your mom, and especially that little feeling of victory when you find something that makes her happy w/o making you crazy or leading to an argument. Yup.
Also, Hank!
"the man is a global supplier of babbling idiocy"
😂 Perhaps the most apt description of McAfee I've ever read (at least descriptions sans expletives).
Also, the Echelon Mall and other references to your youth brought back memories.
Being an old man and technophobe, Mike, I put this comment in the general substack comments. Here's take 2....I hit three points of conttact with your post.
(1) Nice description of downtown Indy. When I stay downtown, i prefer the Conrad. My sister gets me a nice discount from she was an HR manager there.
(2) When i was a kid in suburban Pittsburgh in the 70s, my equivalent of Wanamakers was Kauffmann's. They had a killer candy counter that smelled of chocotae, popcorn and nuts. I can still smell it.
(3) My first home after leaving hoem to practice law in 1989 was at the Corners At Echelon. Decent apartment, a few eagles lived there. And the mall was just great. Sad to see it die.
Mike, your essay on your mom was beautiful, familiar and so nostalgic.
We are about the same age and I grew up in Cherry Hill, so the Echelon Mall part was especially enjoyable to read.
There were 3 major malls we went to in the 1980s.....Cherry Hill, Moorestown and Echelon (Deptford was there, but slightly further away and less convenient to get to). For me personally, Echelon was my favorite. Loved the food court. Loved the sun shining down onto the 2nd floor through the windows. Loved the B Dalton! Hated Sam Goody (overpriced). There always seemed to be baseball card shows happening there. I vividly remember a record show where you were able to purchase bootleg cassettes. And everyone from my high school (Cherry Hill East) seemed to hang out and/or work at the mall.
Echelon Mall is of course dead. Cherry Hill is alive but feel empty and soulless. Moorestown Mall, which ironically was a bit of a joke to us as teenagers cause it was so small, seems to be thriving, but I admit I have not been in there in a few years.
Also, yes as a kid, I also got bored and hid in the clothing racks with my younger brother while my mom shopped and shopped and shopped.
And yes, now, I take my mom to Shop Rite twice a month to help her do her "big" food shopping since she is unable to do this on her own (but full credit to mom for still being able to live on her own). Grocery shopping with my mom is painful, and I will admit not being as patient as I should at times. But of course, I am lucky that my mom is still around, and doing this errand with her is a very small payback for everything she has done for me.
Thanks for sharing! Deptford was actually the go-to mall for Madonna Wannabe girls and IROC guys. It is still there, helped by a bowling alley. Cherry Hill Mall is ringed by a parking lot full of dragons.
I go to Moorestown occasionally because my wife likes the movie theater. It is D-E-D, dead. Last time happened to be on a Thursday night and it was a ghost town.
Long ago, it actually had a supermarket attached to it!
I also grew up in Cherry Hill (and Mike and I are the same age), and the Echelon Mall was my favorite of the local malls for the reasons you mentioned (I also attended Cherry Hill East). My mom still lives in Cherry Hill and I'm not too far away so I can help when needed, but she's a bit younger than Mike's mom (early 70s) and still active (more so than me!) and enjoys doing food shopping. My help is more of a tech support role.
REAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS CANNOT CARRY A TUNE.
There are some VERY large men employed in South Philadelphia who would take great umbrage at this claim.
Thanks for taking Mom to Boscov’s the other day.
I have no idea what is going on here but I nonplussed.
That makes two of us
“The Omega Man” was one of the inspirations for Mystery Science Theater 3000, according to Joel Hodgson.
Like you, I am NOT a fan of McAfee. In addition to his fashion "choices" his excessive volume is a major turn-off. Oh, loud and wrong is still wrong.
If you're still in the market, Mike, here's this: After several years, my wife got tired of yelling at me and ordered me to get hearing aids. I recommend Costco. $1,500 includes exam. Great service. And, on another subject, since you claimed that football players can't carry a tune and you also claim not to have a topic for April Fool's Day . . . here ya go: "The Green Bay Packers Sin A Capella in 'Pitch Perfect 2' and Other Football and Popular Culture Mash-Ups (Though No Wardrobe Malfunctions)."
Aaron Rodgers used to sing Christian rock. As Hank Hill would say: he did not make Christianity better, just rock n roll worse.
(I have a topic. It's actually a rerun of a lost classic)
It also turned Aaron into an atheist. Anyways, something did.
McAfee is a clown, but he is an excellent clown. Witness his fantastic timing and delivery in the "Let A Naysayer Know" incident on ESPN. The problem is that the clown started to take himself seriously, and the enormous problem is that many others started to take the clown seriously as well, but this problem is hardly exclusive to McAfee.
Also, between my affection for both retail therapy and scrapple-and-eggs, I might be Mike's mom.
Hard to believe that someone who writes so exquisitely is also a former math teacher.
I loved the passages about your mother.
I'm in the UK. I was aware of McAfee from the ESPN website (not paywalled here!) and from his WWE connections. Now WWE is on Netflix, I can watch it for free and my God, the guy is the most ear-bleedingly awful commentator I've ever heard. How did an irritating-voiced ex-punter(!) become such a huge media thing?
Networking networking networking.
Fantastic, Mike. Both about McAfee and shopping. Absolutely love your writing.