Back in the 80’s, the Amsterdam Mall had divided our small hometown literally and figuratively, but for my childhood self, a mall was a beautiful place to roam.
My favorite store, Smile-A-While (pause for gagging), sold novelty soaps, stickers, and the silly stuff that spoke to my very young gay self. In the center of it all was a little food court where Mr. B’s Best (a roast beef sub shop if I recall correctly) and an Orange Julius presided over a dracaena forest. For some reason we rarely ate there (our parents likely considered it too much like junk food to get us an Orange Julius) but I always felt like I would have loved one.
Cut to this day, when the temperatures were happily warm (false spring in full but all-too-brief effect) and I’m taking this Orange Julie Monkey smoothie for a spin at Professor Java’s. It’s their take on the original Orange Julius, and it’s just as lovely as I imagined it to be. It brings me back to the 80’s, when we roamed the mall, when our main concern and worry was in which sticker to select for the week, and where to place it in my sticker book…
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