Dinky Mall
When Ian was a tiny boy, he called our local mall the "dinky Mall". Compared to the Eastwood and Southern Park Malls, the Shenango Valley Mall was dinky in size. It opened when I was a little child myself. My earliest memories of the brand new mall are mostly vague. I was 4-5 years old at that time, and my parents didn't take us there often. W.T. Grants was a discount department store, located where Macy's was before it closed down a few years ago. Grants had a restaurant attached called The Bradford House, which we ate at on a fairly regular basis. Children received plastic hand puppets with their meals. We thought that was great. Food platters came with a sprig of green (parsley?) And burgers were held together with fancy cellophane topped toothpicks. The mall of my early childhood was full of retail shops, some very large, and a mix of small to medium stores. I remember getting school shoes at the little shoe store (I think it wa...
