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I was in Mesquite visiting the "local historian" I reference in my Big Town galleries, who was blissfully unaware that this big chunk of her childhood had come to meet its end. We all headed towards the mall, and our historian's oldest daughter, Hanna, who's eight, decided to test out her new camera. Once she killed her own batteries, my Rebel was community property, and these are the pictures I posted in my gallery.

Disclaimer: The rubble-gawking that she and I did was fully under the watchful eye of her parents. It was also a great opportunity to explain to her the whole "leave only footprints, take only photos, and don't hop the fence 'cause Mesquite PD will call your mom" concept - If I'm gonna "hook her while she's young" I may as well set her on the moral path.

She was absolutely fascinated. Even though she never actually went to Big Town, she was reflecting on the fact that many people had a lot of memories here, and that it was really sad that they were knocking it down. Her parents told our wide-eyed UE-er a million stories - What movies they saw here, how many pairs of school shoes they bought here, and how this was overall a pretty cool place to hang out back in its day. There were a dozen other cars slowly circling the mall, not counting the four police cars that eyed us, and she wondered if those folks had shopped there too. Looking over at the bowling alley, she decided that she wants to bowl there, because "they're probably going to tear it down too, since it looks so '70s, and I want to go before they do."