Lots of things have changed since Covid-19 was or was not started in a lab on the other side of the Pacific.

You may have been sad when your favorite restaurant was closed, or a good friend moved away. You may have a new job, like me.

One of the biggest changes I have observed has been how we spend our money.

The new 'mall' is our own computer screen or smart phone. They have taken the place of the physical shopping experience.

• Instead of driving to the mall, we fire up the laptop.
• Instead of searching for a parking space, we search for a product.
• Instead of wandering to the next store, we change our search criteria.
• Instead of fumbling for cash or a credit card, we autofill our information when it is asked for with PayPal or Apple Pay.
• Instead of walking out of the store with a logoed bag, we move on to the next thing.
• Instead of unloading the car when we arrive home, we unload the mailbox or the front porch when UPS or USPS or FedEx delivers our purchases.
• Instead of discarding the bag our things came in, we cut up cardboard boxes for the recycling process.

If I described the things that you do now, it is not a coincidence that it is a list of things that I do now. Recently, I had a reason to physically visit a mall and was a little surprised at what I found or didn't find.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional shopper, and I have spent very little time in shopping malls compared to other members of my family, if you know what I mean.

In the event you are like me and eventually decide to physically go to a mall, you might be in for a surprise, because it might remind you of a ghost town.

About 25 minutes from our home, there is a large regional mall with three anchor stores and about 100 other retail businesses, plus a dozen or so food court offerings. I’ve been going to this location for about 15 years, although not very often and not as much as before the pandemic. I’d head there for birthday and holiday shopping, occasionally for a book or a Hallmark gift or card.

Recently, I had the need to visit the Genius Bar (modest name?) at the Apple store. I walked into a ghost town.

• Two-thirds of the stores were closed and empty, the Hallmark store among them.
• Some percentage still had merchandise in the windows, but they were closed on a Saturday. Closed on a Saturday!
• Ten of the twelve food court locations were shuttered. (Thank goodness the Dunkin was still open).
• That extra parking deck to handle the overflow holiday crowds? Closed.
• The information desk at the busy crossroads inside the mall? Replaced with a phone screen replacement kiosk.

The busiest location in the ghost town, I mean mall? The Apple Store.

Change is inevitable, and while walking around I thought about how the life cycle of the regional mall had entered a new stage, the Ghost Town stage.

I am old enough to remember the beginning of the mall concept, since I am old and I lived a few miles from the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, the largest mall south of Boston. (Opened a few years after the first mall in America, Shopper's World in Framingham. Look it up.)

When the 'Plaza' was built, it was not covered. It was an open-air mall. 

Then Jordan Marsh came in and the mall expanded and added a roof over the sidewalks and in between the stores.

A couple of times, during my younger days, I worked at the mall during school vacations.

• One summer I was a ‘Car Counter’ meaning I sat outside near a driveway entrance to the mall and counted the cars and occupants by hour and logged them on a clipboard form. Definitely a pre ‘high-tech’ era.
• Another Christmas, I directed traffic outside of Jordan Marsh (now Macy’s) in a fluorescent yellow slicker. A real power trip telling adults where to go.
• I also got to drive into the truck tunnel under the mall, which is where all the deliveries take place. Very cool experience in a pick-up truck.
• I was also a stock clerk in a fabric store, bringing bolts of fabric up and down stairs after school and on weekends.

Needless to say, I never was one to ‘hang at the mall’ as some kids did.

I had all these memories come back to me as I wandered through the ghost town that used to be a vibrant center of retail activity in Central Massachusetts and wondered why the genre had deteriorated so quickly.

• Obviously, the growth of online shopping didn’t help the mall.
• Equally as obvious is the pandemic didn’t help the mall.

But as I started to think about what I was observing and why, I realized that some businesses were actually thriving, but the only stores that were busy or open were those locations that offered something that couldn’t be bought online, or was better purchased when touched.

Locations where you wanted to be physically present to obtain the goods or services. Those were the survivors. Who knew that was going to happen?

You can't get some things online. Like a haircut, help with a cell phone, a Dunkin Donut, or a neck massage. But for almost everything else, a mall is a distant second place to a computer.

Change is inevitable and as I wandered around, amazed at the transformation of the mall genre I thought about the stages before the Ghost Town stage.

Stage 1: New and Suburban. Malls were developed to replace downtown businesses in a clean, new environment, with more (and free) parking than the small-town merchant areas. Shopping became easier and better at a mall.

Stage 2: Growth-One Stop Shopping. Malls grew and became indoor places with every kind of business under the sun. They were efficient in a one-stop shopping kind of way. Shopping took less time at a mall.

Stage 3: Sale, Sale, Sale. They eventually entered the stage where 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% and 70% off signs dominated the windows. Shopping became less expensive at a mall and then Outlet Malls drove home the point.

Stage 4: Entertainment. They eventually ‘jumped the shark’ as they say, with the Mall of America in Minneapolis that has a full-size amusement park including a roller coaster inside to go with their 520 retail locations. There was an entertainment factor ranging from the aforementioned roller coaster to vibration lounge chairs to a Madame Tussaud Wax Museum in a Nashville mall. Shopping was more fun at a mall.

Stage 5: Lose the Roof. Open air malls, like the original South Shore Plaza became the new thing. Why people liked to move their car three times while shopping, and get wet when it rains, I'll never know.

Stage 6: Repurpose. Make it something else. Before it was demolished there was a mall in Worcester that was a, are you ready? A college campus.

Stage 7: Ghost Town. Plenty of parking, not many stores, a couple of food court locations, one of the three anchor stores closed and the other two more or less empty, and on and on. Malls are dying a slow death.

The reasons why are obvious.

• Shopping can be easier and better online.
• Shopping can take less time online.
• Shopping can be less expensive online.
• Shopping can be more fun online.

Change is inevitable, nothing lasts forever. Forgotten American success stories include:

• Buggy Whips, they are hardly used anymore.
• Howard Johnson's Restaurants, (invented the clam strip) the last one just closed.
• Pay Phones: Quick, tell me the last time you used one. Do you remember how much it cost?
• Pontiac Automobiles: "Huh?" a young reader asks.
• Mimeograph Machines: The smell cannot be duplicated and is forever etched into the nasal memories of a generation of elementary school students.
• Eight Track Tapes: I still miss them.

Change is inevitable, nothing lasts forever. What's next? Of course, if you knew, it would probably make you rich. It could be:

• Gas Stations: California has claimed dibs on eliminating this institution.
• AM Radio: Come on, why is it still around?
• Supermarkets: Food delivery is way, way up and as the population ages...
• Desktop Computers: Try to find one at a Best Buy or a Staples. All laptops.
• Book Stores: Many are already gone. Remember Walden Books at every Mall?
• Board Games: We have a digital table with Scrabble, Monopoly, Score Four, Checkers, Chess and forty other games. Don't be so sure.

The point is that nothing lasts forever and the phrase 'ghost town' was created to label a place that was once thriving and now is inhabited only by...ghosts.

Businesses, occupations, cities, automobiles, industries, communities: nothing is guaranteed to last. Change is inevitable and ignoring signs, or resisting change, or denying trends, has never been part of any success formula. Just take a walk through the mall near you for a wakeup call for the proof.

Bye, bye, Miss American Mall. Can't wait to see what's next for you.

Map Below is from the Flat Earth Society website