No more cookies

Growing up, there were a few places in my childhood that have changed names. I remember going to Krogers with my mother when I was a kid. I remember it vividly because in the back right corner of the store was the bakery, and they gave free cookies to kids who came by. Hence, I will never forget that Krogers. Well, that Krogers closed and they opened a new one down the street. And so, for a long time no store or business occupied that building, but it occasionally was used for my church fundraisers. Soon a Budget Save went in, and despite the new name, our family still called it Krogers. We would say, “it is where the old Krogers used to be.” As of day, it has switched to a Save A Lot. However, that does not stop us from still calling it the old Krogers. That is just what we first knew, and now that there is inconsistency with the names, we continue to use what we are familiar with.
Another example is with our shopping mall in Richland County. It used to be called the Richland Mall, but since then there has been a name change to Westpark Shopping Mall. Everyone I know, and my whole family still call it the Richland Mall, or just the mall. I have never heard anyone refer to it as the Westpark Shopping Mall, unless it is in a joke. We cannot understand why they would change the name, because it has always been the Richland Mall and will continue to be named that. In this case, nothing in the mall appearance or manner has changed with the name. That is what seems to make the name so meaningless. Richland Mall defined the mall as it was, but this new name can only define something different. And because it is not different, it has yet to define the identity of the mall.
Although a name does not change any physical appearance or location, there seems to be a loss of identity. There seems to be a change in feeling, because it has lost some of the meaning it had for you. The fact that there was a Krogers meant something to me, but now that it is a Save A Lot, the meaning behind why I loved going to Krogers has been lost. There are no free cookies at Save A Lot and because of it, that name change has lost part of my history.