Time spent at the mall is full of life's special moments, if you only take time to see. It doesn't matter if you're Dallas shopping or Fort Worth shopping.

I spend a lot of time at the Dallas Fort Worth shopping malls and as often as not, I go there just to hang out and see what's new.

It doesn't cost anything just to walk around and if it's an enclosed mall, you can beat the Texas heat.

I had a little cabin fever, so a couple of weeks ago I went to Grapevine Mills, in Grapevine, TX. Hm-m-m, wonder what the odds of that are?

Anyway, the first thing that struck me was the smiles on people's faces. The mall is a happy place that friends and family can enjoy together. The few that weren't smiling at least weren't mad.

There seemed to be a lot of kids (mostly teens) talking on cell phones. And of those who were talking on their phones, most of them were with other friends. So let me see if I got this straight -- they were at the mall with friends, but were ignoring those friends to talk to other friends.

If you read the current literature on generational differences, it has something to do with the under-20 crowd's need to feel connected.

I guess I'm from the old school, but when I go somewhere, I sometimes like to be disconnected. Heck, I didn't even get my first cell phone until May - this year!

Something else I noticed about the groups of kids. We that are parents may have done an inadequate job of teaching our children how to try on clothes. It's quite an epidemic. How do I know this? A large number of the kids were having quite a time holding up their pants with one hand while holding their cell phone with the other.

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine and I tried that just to be funny. We pulled our shorts down just so they covered the bottoms of our tucked-in t-shirts. This placed our waistband just below our bottoms. It got laughs because our friends thought it was so stupid. Now it's a trend. At the risk of giving away my age, this was in the 1970's.

While being passed by power walkers 20-30 years my senior, I noticed some couples walking hand-in-hand. Holding hands at a mall has two benefits, as I see it. One is there's something special about the human touch. But it also keeps you from getting separated from each other in a crowd.

So go to the mall and hold hands with your sweetie - you'll like it.

I went to the food court because I hadn't eaten supper yet, and I noticed a long line at the Haagen-Dazs kiosk. I think it was 106 degrees that day. You don't think there was any coincidence, do you?

On my way out, I saw something that made me smile. It reminded me of when my daughter (now an adult) was a little girl. There was a cute little girl riding on her father's shoulders, having so much fun together. That's a memory that will most likely last a lifetime for the father and the daughter.

This quote sums it up: "Finally, I realized what makes my garden exciting is me. Living in it every day, participating minutely in each small event, I see with doubled and redoubled vision. Where friends notice a solitary hummingbird pricking the salvia flowers, I recall a season's worth of hummingbird battles."

- Janice Emily Bowers

A Full Life in a Small Place, 1993

So on your next trip to the mall, make it exciting to you. Look for opportunities to create special moments with friends and family. It will make that trip to the Dallas Fort Worth shopping malls fun!