Old School

I served on a board for two years and resigned this past December. I was supposed to serve three years, but I just couldn't do it any longer. One of the women I served with wanted to take me out to lunch as a thank you.

It's always fun to discover another Arizona native! We're close in age, she's three years older than me. She's tall, slender and beautiful. Especially the slender part... as we were returning to my job I told her I'd felt intimidated by her, but didn't any longer. She asked why and I said, "Well, I was a little worried about going to lunch with you, because I thought you'd eat, like, a walnut or something." She laughed and said, "Like a bird. Well, you saw that was wrong!" Then I laughed and said, "That's when I started to hate you, because obviously you have a fast metabolism!"

Lunch wasn't so hot. Literally not hot. The waitress brought our plates with these huge oven mitts on her hands, and the food was lukewarm. The plates weren't even hot. I don't think my friend ever got her iced tea and it took forever to get our food and we never got our tab. We had to go up to the front and ask for it. My friend told me a neat little piece of trivia that she said probably not many people know about anymore. She said she had waitressed for many years and if you really like the service you received, leave your tip and one penny. She said it meant you felt your service was exceptional. And if you left only a penny, then that said something altogether different. Isn't that neat?

Whenever I meet an Arizona native, I always ask them if they can remember what the old Thomas Mall looked like. It's such a mind twister to go back in my head and visualize it, because now it looks totally different.

We talked about the various neighborhoods we lived in, and we lived within a few miles of each other in some places, but in different years. It was fun to compare notes. We talked a little about our childhoods, and how we'd made the choice to not follow in our parent's footsteps.

I had a really nice time. We had to go to the bank to get her name on the account as a signer, and take my name off. Since I'd lost my driver's license, they couldn't do anything for us, unless I had a state identification card. I felt really bad about it, but she was so cool about it and was even happy because she said we could go to lunch again. She said she never gets to go out to lunch and really enjoyed my company.

Here are some historical links to Thomas Mall:

Malls of America - Thomas Mall
Malls of America - Monkey Cages in Thomas Mall
Mall Hall of Fame - Thomas Mall
Historical Gallery of Phoenix, Arizona 1960s - Thomas Mall

Until next time.