The Jasper Mall

                              Screenshot: Entrance sign/ TulaneLSU's post, 11/24/20, www.tigerdroppings.com

Recently while browsing the internet my eye was enticed by a typical bit of retargeting, otherwise known as clickbait. This particular enticement came by way of an article, "Gen Xer Mourns the Death of the Ultimate Monument of Teen Culture: The Mall," featured in The Boston Globe, and it appeared to be another nostalgia piece for those of us fortunate enough to have lived the experience of the American shopping mall firsthand. To be fair, I could only briefly glimpse the first bit of the opening paragraph before the annoying pop up banner demanding a paid subscription ruined my inquest. Aside from our Puritan forebears, the poet Robert Lowell and, perhaps, clam chowder, my affinity for Boston ends there. I'm simply not paying for a subscription to read one single article.  Besides, I've heard the story all too often as evidenced by the umpteen Youtube videos featuring dead or dying malls. 

And then of course is the documentary film, Jasper Mall. I didn't watch it when it was released in 2020 because I assumed it was a satirization of my hometown or, at the very least, directed in a way that would serve as a jibe at the South in general: a modern take on H.L. Mencken's "Sahara of the Bozart" perhaps. In other words, one of these ludicrous mockumentaries. Even if it was not, I'm not too keen on these low-budget indie documentaries in the first place. This documentary film, as I realized later, proved to be none of these things. Rather, the directors allegedly chose the Jasper Mall among their many choices simply for the fact that the mall has not been remodeled since it opened in 1981. In essence, they wanted to capture as much of the genuine aesthetic of the 1980's as possible. Honestly, I don't view the interior of the mall as definitive of the 1980's, although the prominent use of the teal and mauve that highlight the entrance sign are undoubtedly features from that era. 

Ah yes, memories . . . 

    Screenshot: Directory/ TulaneLSU's post, 11/24/20, www.tigerdroppings.com

I still remember my first visit to the mall in the fall of 1981. I would have been in the 6th grade at Maddox Middle School (possibly still named simply Jasper Middle School then) and it seemed as if literally the whole of Walker County was piled up in the place. I remember standing with my dad for what seemed an eternity to order from Chick Fil-A. While waiting in that extremely long queue my dad spotted our pastor, Dr. Nunn of First Baptist Church, and struck up a brief conversation. From what I can remember, he was loaded down with shopping bags from J.C. Penney. I also remember seeing lots of my classmates and their families there, and the Jasper Mall instantly became the place to be on Friday or Saturday nights. Naturally, the mall had an arcade. Seriously, what else defines the early 1980's more than a video arcade? For the first few years we had The Goldmine, located right at the (then) back entrance. Eventually The Goldmine closed but another arcade sprang up near J.C. Penney's, albeit without all the over-the-top thematic decor. Of course our mall, like the big 2-story malls in nearby Birmingham, had the customary Hallmark card store, a Radio Shack, and several shoe stores. We lacked a Spencer's, a Banana Republic, and a United Colors of Benetton, though, but this was only a small town mall so that was to be expected. We had a record store at least, and The Record Bar was unquestionably my favorite shop! I remember to this day the very first record I bought there: The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" 45 r.p.m. single. A few years later it either closed or changed ownership, but The Sound Shop replaced it so Jasper was not without a corporate record chain. 

While I would never consider myself to have been a stereotypical mall rat, the Jasper Mall was indeed the social hub for teenagers in the 1980's. Jasper also had the Cobb movie theater and it, too, featured an arcade, but the mall still served as the gathering spot before whatever weekend night adventures awaited. A certain group would always gravitate to Skate Galaxy, the local skating rink. I despised the place because it always seemed to attract the white trash trailer park types. Wendy's, by contrast, was the gathering spot for the preppies, and they too were anathema to me. So the mall it was for me. The mall was the place to see and be seen, and be seen I was. Indeed, the mall was the place to seek and make new friends that you might not ever meet outside of school. While Jasper is the county seat and largest town in Walker County, it's certainly not the only town. I mean, those other towns do have high schools too, and the Jasper Mall would have certainly been the place to find kindred spirits. Take Angie Craft, for instance. Had it not been for the mall, I'd have likely never met another dressed all in black and a fan of The Cure and The Sisters of Mercy. And with her acquaintance came her entire friend network, which ultimately merged with mine. This, and only this, was networking before the internet!

                    Screenshot: The Pit/ TulaneLSU's post, 11/24/20, www.tigerdroppings.com

I can fondly remember first beholding Angie's black-clad figure haunting an area of the mall I referred to as the pit, a sunken seating area near the entrance of J.C. Penney's. She, along with her boyfriend John, stood out in stark contrast to the ordinary others at the mall. She in her complete blackness and he with his spiked mohawk encountered another creature of the night when I resolutely introduced myself. The friendship burgeoned from there, and within no time at all Angie was employed at Waldenbooks in plain view of the pit. Having a job at the mall was a coveted thing indeed. My friend Arlene scooped ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins and John Greene was a cashier at Chick-fil-A. Another friend, Marcus Grace, worked at Everything's a Dollar and my luckiest classmates had jobs at the various clothing boutiques.   

Fast forward to 1998. By then I was out of high school and college, and was living in Memphis, TN. I was in town for my 10-year class reunion, and of course in order to run into familiar faces I simply had to go straight to the mall. Not much had changed, but a new restaurant, Garfields, seemed to be a happening place. I had never heard of it, but it had an Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday's vibe to it. A definite upgrade from the staid Kopper Kettle Cafeteria it replaced. Jasper, and it's little mall, were moving up! Another decade later I was back in town for my 20th reunion. This time I brought my son along and had to take him to the mall for some new shoes. I was impressed that Jasper now had a Belk's to anchor the back of the mall. Finally, in 2008, the little mall was beginning to mimic bigger malls in spite of the fact that a lowly K-Mart was one of its three anchor stores. I recall seeing a Bath and Body Shop, another upgrade for the otherwise humble mall. The mall was crowded as always, and even in the age of Amazon and Ebay the social hub of town remained steadfast.   

Fast forward to my 30th reunion (deep sigh), such was no longer the case. Downtown Jasper, by contrast, seemed like the new place to be. Our reunion, naturally, had far fewer attendees than the two previous gatherings, and to reserve our traditional venue at the local country club would have been massive overkill. Rather, our class officers chose to hold our reunion at Warehouse 319 in downtown Jasper. What a memorable event indeed. Warehouse 319 was a hip little place with the best fried green tomatoes I've ever encountered. This trendy little eatery would fit perfectly alongside any bistro in Birmingham's Five Points South. Downtown Jasper appeared to be vibrant once again, out of its coma, and such as it had not been since Woolworth's closed and J.C. Penney's relocated to the mall. This notion of revitalized small-town squares appears to be a shared experience as evident in a blog I stumbled upon recently. The anonymous blogger, known simply as TulaneLSU, reflected upon a recent visit to Walker County (11/24/2020). TulaneLSU's impressions of downtown Jasper's kinship to the mall gel perfectly with mine:

          Like many malls in our land, once vibrant, Jasper Mall              is now on life support. These malls once sucked the                  life from downtowns, and now American downtowns,                    undergoing revitalization over the past 15 years, are                reclaiming what was taken. The malls are in a literal                sense, shells of themselves, places that have no vital              organs to support the functions for which they were                  created.  

It's a bit ironic isn't it? It's as though we have come full circle and what was once forgotten is relevant once again. This renewed relevance, of course, is not without new consequences. 

Jasper Mall is certainly not alone. Even the once-magnificent Riverchase Galleria is now in steady decline, and another Birmingham mall, Century Plaza, has been demolished to make way for an Amazon warehouse--one of the very reasons for the mall's demise. Irony again. The fate of the Jasper Mall is shared by most other malls across America, but it's not a worldwide dilemma. In Asia, shopping malls are often works of absolute splendor. It would appear that these super malls in China, Japan, Korea, India, and the Phillipines are in direct competition with one another to create the greatest wow factor. 

   

The above video is merely one of hundreds of videos featuring such malls. If malls are dead or dying, Asia hasn't received the memo yet. Neither has Europe, especially in the old Soviet Bloc. Warsaw, Poland and Prague, Czech Republic have equally impressive malls. Perhaps a certain sense of yearning to experience what the collective West once held sacred exists among the population, but it has been over three decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, so any desire for what was once forbidden should have worn off by now. Judging by the  robust crowds in these malls, the desire is still very much alive. 

To be fair, Jasper was never really big enough of a town to have a fully-enclosed mall. Most other towns of this size had to make do with the typical shopping center. In that respect, Jasper was unique . . . almost. Oxford, Mississippi also had a mall of it's own even though nearby Tupelo already had a fairly large regional mall. At the time Oxford's little mall was built, Jasper was the larger of the two towns. Oxford's population, however, is enhanced by the University of Mississippi which, today, has a student population of nearly 25,000. In 1980, however, the town of Oxford itself had a population of just under 10,000, while Jasper's was just shy of 12,000. Again, though, Oxford had the advantage of a major university directly in town, so Jasper's proud possession of a mall made it the more unique. The two little malls were similar in that they both were anchored by a "one level" J.C. Penney on one end and a discount retailer on the other: K-mart for Jasper, and Walmart for Oxford. I'm sure visitors from bigger cities scoffed at such homespun quaintness. None of us minded one bit though.

Today, the Oxford Mall is a memory. The University of Mississippi, however, has put the building to use, including its vast parking lot for student parking. Unlike Jasper, Oxford's traditional downtown, known locally as The Square, never suffered the thirty year hibernation as did Jasper's. This, however, is due exclusively to the fact that downtown Oxford is conveniently situated quite literally at the entrance to Ole Miss. Jasper's downtown is flourishing again, but at the expense of the mall. Still, Jasper Mall is alive, although barely, but the recent remodeling of the vacant J.C. Penney into the new Dunham Sports might help with increasing interest once again. Time will tell. The anticipation of a Rural King occupying the empty K-mart location could prove to be just the boost the mall needs, but that's if shoppers venture forth into a mostly empty mall. 

The Jasper Mall, as mentioned earlier, is not unique in its demise. Online shopping and social media have drained the substance of what made American malls so special. We Gen-Xers are apparently the ones pining the most for the glory days of the 1980's, but Gen-Z just might be the salvation for the mall at least. Netflix's Stranger Things, for example, has evidently instilled a sense of anemoia into today's teens much like Millennials resurrected the vinyl LP from its grave. Such a renaissance may actually be happening in real time, at least in California. While browsing the search engines for interesting mall stories, I came across Benjamin Raziel's article, "The Future of the American Mall is Being Reshaped in Los Angeles," in the July 1, 2024 issue of Forbes. According to the article, the proverbial missing ingredient for the mall of the 21st century is now fully realized in LA's HHLA Mall: 

           Shopping malls across the United States are following               in HHLA's footsteps, incorporating more immersive,                 interactive, and entertainment-based tenants. With                   the inclusion of arcades. movie theaters, laser-tag, go-           carts, indoor sports and even roller coasters, malls               are attracting a brand-new audience of experience-                  seeking consumers. 

While I can't readily envision roller coasters at Jasper's little mall, a movie theater seems quite the perfect addition. This is especially the case given the fairly recent closure of the Cobb 4. A mall I visited a few years back in Pueblo, Colorado was already ahead of the trend by featuring a trampoline park in the upper level of an abandoned anchor store. If my memory serves correct, a big fitness center occupied the lower level of this same former department store. 

Hopefully, for their social development, today's youth will seek socialization outside of their bedrooms, tethered by a headset to a Discord forum. Seriously, what's the fun in making a TikTok video in a basement or garage when the food court at the mall provides an instant audience as well as the possibility of social networking? Since Gen-Z is our near future, this aging Gen-Xer can only hope these misgendered snowflakes precious prodigies will make our malls great again!