captain_slinky | 141 - First Trip To Seattle (1984)

It was the Summer of 1984 and I was 11 years old when my big sister, Jan, showed me The World. To my knowledge I had never been further away from my hometown of Anacortes than the neighboring towns of Oak Harbor and Mount Vernon; two towns powered by a Community College on one end and an Air Force Base on the other. Neither were particularly "Big" towns, but they were bigger than Anacortes. THOSE TOWNS had Fast Food and Movie Theaters, things Anacortes sorely lacked at the time. I loved my small-town life, sure, but sometimes I wished I could see an actual Toys R Us or a Happy Meal.

I think it was an entire *week* I spent with Jan, but it could have been just a weekend? We ate ice cream that wasn't Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry! We went swimming in the middle of the night! We stayed up till the weeeeee hours of the morning watching Cable Television (well, *I* stayed up till the weeeeeee hours of the morning watching Cable Television while Jan and her boyfriend snored on the couch). Jan and her roommate made me watch the video for Duran Duran's "The Reflex" and told me that if I could learn to do *that* I would never not have a girlfriend (since I could never figure out what "that" was, combined with an intense 11-year-old fear of Cooties, may have been what kept me from dating in my teen years). I saw TWO MOVIES that opened THAT VERY WEEKEND - "Ghostbusters" and "Gremlins"!

And best of all, though.. we went to THE MALL.

Northgate Mall, to be exact, back when it was all brand-new and shiney! I had seen their commercials and could sing the jingle by heart!

"NORTH Gate, SOUTH Center, TA-CO-MA MAAAAAAAAL,
There's NO place BET-Ter for SHOP-PING A-ROUNNND!"

I don't know how, but when they sang it I'm sure it rhymed. It was 1984, we hadn't invented rhyming yet?

Anyways...

The Northgate Mall provided me with three distinct Character Points, those points in your pre-adult life that really set the parameters of who you are going to be.

1) It was my first Customer Service/Sales Experience. Jan had dropped me at the brand-spankin'-new Toys R Us for an hour or two with $20 in my pocket and a promise that as long as I stayed here and didn't wander off while she was away, there would be McDonalds. And so I investigated every nook and cranny of that store, paying particular attention to the Action Figures. I saw a grandmotherly woman frowning at a display of Starriors toys, and I decided to ask her if there was anything I could help her with. She said that her grandson wanted some sort of robot toy that turned in to a truck or a car or something and she couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Since I was so very versed in television and commercials, I was able to show her the differences between Transformers and Gobots and make some recommendations. Then another lady came over to me and asked if I knew where they kept the bikes - two isles over, hanging from the ceiling. Then another lady wanted to know if I could recommend a toy for an 8-year-old boy, and soon I had a small line of clueless adults wanting my advice. I even corrected a Toys R-Us Employee who was giving a lady bad information about GI Joes! She then said "Gee, thanks - we should hire you! Do you already have a job?" to which I said geez lady I'm just a KID!

2) It was my first unrestricted/unsupervised access to an escalator, and I took full advantage of it by attempting to walk UP the Down Escalator. I expected howls of laughter and cheers of encouragement (as I think I had seen on television), but instead all I got were a bunch of "You're going the wrong way" and "Hey kid move it" and "This is the Down Escalator, Son... you'll need to use the UP one if you want to get anywhere!" I did this for an *hour* while I waited for Jan, amusing no one but myself.

3) It was my first REAL Book Store experience, and I was overwhelmed. In my small town of Anacortes, the Public Library was about the size of what we consider to be a small book store these days. And our local Book Store, "Friendly Books", had about as many books as your average Hudson News shop at an airport. But THIS Book Store was HUGE, and they had collections of comic strips I had never heard of before - one such book being "Toons For Our Times - A Bloom County Collection". Jan wasn't sure about this book, she thought it would be WAY over my head and yeah, it was... but I begged for the book and she bought it for me and I read it TEN ZILLION TIMES.

Bloom County followed me everywhere and opened doors for me wherever I went, mostly with adults. Teachers seemed to like me more once they knew that I was a "fan" of this sophisticated political humor, and I liked that :)

So today, the creator of Bloom County has started the comic strip up again, and it's like nothing has changed! Just seeing that strip in my feed today has made me want to go ride an escalator all day long :)