You Can't Go Home Again

We took a trip down memory lane today, which for us was actually I-90 East all the way to Syracuse and The Carousel Center Mall.

When we were kids, we considered Syracuse the only place to shop (as opposed to our hometown), and when they built the Carousel Mall 15 years ago, we dubbed it mecca. I know, I know, kinda disrespectful to Islam, but hey, we were stupid American kids from Watertown. What the hell did we know?

Not much, I guess. Going back to places you once knew is usually disappointing, but somehow I can never stop myself from trying to see whatever it was I saw back then. In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams wrote, "In memory, everything seems to happen to music." Perhaps that's what I keep waiting for --- to hear that music from the past that is always eclipsed by the jarring present.

Well, whatever. If you're a shopper, don't add The Carousel Mall to your list of places to shop before you die. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend it as a place to waste a Saturday afternoon. It's a crappy mall in a shitty town and I can't imagine why I ever wanted to go there, but at least now I know it, and I'll never have the compulsion to go there again.

And what did you do today?