I was exposed to shopping malls long before most people in Keyser ever heard of them because of my family’s travels to see my aunts, uncles and cousins.

One was in King of Prussia, Pa., and my dad and Uncle Bob Broughton (he was married to Dad’s sister Penny) decided it was probably bigger than all of Keyser.

They could have been right, because I looked it up and it is the largest shopping mall on the East Coast at one square mile or thereabouts. It employs 6,000 people, which is more than actually live in Keyser today.

There also were malls in Johnstown, Pa., a few miles from Conemaugh, where my Uncle Lohr and Aunt Mary Jackson on my mother’s side of the family lived. It was in one of them that I was introduced to bowling and pizza, but not beer.

Malls were OK, but I really liked going to department stores. People thought we had department stores around here, but they’d never been to Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. It had an enormous bronze eagle and the world’s largest pipe organ, and for a little kid from the sticks like me to be suddenly expected to learn how to jump on and off an escalator was like setting foot on the moon.

Two things involving my parents happened without fail each time we went shopping.

People invariably mistook my dad for a sales clerk and asked him for help or directions. This was back in the 1950s and 1960s, when stores actually had clerks who walked around and asked people if they needed assistance. You didn’t have to go looking for them. It went, “My I help you?” and “No, thanks, just looking,” or “Yes, could you please direct me to lingerie?”

Dad always wore white dress shirts, and he never left the house without a tie — back then, it was often a bow tie. He was tall and handsome, with black hair slicked back like a movie star’s, and he had a professional, distinguished air of authority that made folks think he knew what they needed to find out.

My mother, on the other hand, could vanish more quickly than that economic stimulus check the government sent you a few weeks back.

First thing I knew, Dad would start looking around, and then he’d turn to me with an exasperation I can still see and say, “(Colorful Anglo-Saxonism), Jimmy, she’s wandered off again. How anybody can disappear as fast as your mother does is beyond me.”

Then we’d go looking all over for her, and after about half an hour we’d find her. Dad would say, “(Milder and less-colorful Anglo-Saxonism), Ruth, where’d you get to this time?”

My mom — who was almost a foot shorter than Dad and I were — usually replied that she’d just gone to look at the housewares or whatever.

“I knew where you were the whole time,” she’d say.

“Jimmy,” Dad would tell me after he thought she was out of earshot, “All I can tell you is that she must be able to see through things a hell of a lot better than you and I can.”

With this in mind, here are two stories my dad would have loved:

——————

An older man pushing a shopping cart made the turn at the end of the aisle and bumped into a cart being pushed by a younger man.

The older fellow said, “Sorry. I’m looking for my wife and wasn’t paying any attention.”

“That’s all right,” said the younger man. “My wife’s disappeared, too.”

“Maybe we can help each other look,” said the older guy. “What does your wife look like?”

The younger man said, “She’s 24 years old, tall and blonde, with blue eyes and long legs, built like the USS West Virginia on the day of its launching and wearing white shorts and a halter top. What does your wife look like?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said the older man. “Let’s go look for yours.”

——————

The same older man was in the same store a couple of weeks later.

He approached a young woman who fit the description of the woman in the first story, but was in fact someone else.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said, “my wife has wandered off and I can’t find her. Could you help me?”

“Of course,” said the young woman. “What does she look like? Can I help you look for her?”

“No, no,” said the older man. “That won’t be necessary. Just stand here with me for a minute. Every time we’re out someplace and I start talking to a woman who looks like you, she shows up out of nowhere!”

—————

For all that my dad appreciated looking at, talking to and associating with other women, he found one who was all he ever wanted ... and the feeling was mutual. One of the last things she ever told me was that, “I’ve had a wonderful life.” Because of them, I know that love exists. I’ve seen it.

My mom was a beautiful woman with gorgeous dark red hair ... gracious, loving, kind and wise, multi-talented and blessed with a marvelous sense of humor.

As she lay comatose and dying peacefully at the age of 84, the nurses would come in, look at her and tell my dad and me they couldn’t get over how lovely she was.

My father outlived her for another eight years, and there was never a time when he didn’t miss her with all of his heart and soul. The thought of taking up with anyone else never entered his mind.

She’d wandered off once more ... but I suspect that she knew right where he was all along.

Each day I pray that he’s found her again.