“I won’t grow up.

Not a penny will I pinch.

I will never grow a mustache, 

Or a fraction of an inch.

‘Cause growing up is awfuller

Than all the awful things that ever were.

I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, 

No sir.

And Never Land will always be

The home of beauty, joy

And neverty.

I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up

Not me! 

— Songwriters: David B. Chase / Morris I. Charlap / Carolyn Leigh

Most people don’t know this.

When Sam Walton and his gang of engineers and designers sat down to create the first Sam’s Clubs, one of the design elements they included in their plans was indoor recreation and creative play for children.

No kidding!  You could look it up!

If you have ever shopped there with small children you know exactly what I mean.

Let me use our local Sam’s Club here in Chandler, Arizona, as an example.

First and foremost, it is ungodly hot here for three to four months out of the year. Even though it’s a dry heat, triple digits are still damn hot. To play outdoors is to court burned hands, arms and legs on metal outdoor play equipment. This is for real. Then there is the danger of heat exhaustion and dehydration. So indoor play is a no-brainer.  (One could translate the benefits to more northern climes where it can be ungodly cold for three to four months, with similar injuries due to frostbite.)

Sam’s Club is literally acres of playground, under cover and air conditioned.  Or undercover and heated, whatever your need.

To get the full impact of creative play opportunities to be had at Sam’s Club, I will use Jack’s and James’s names for their games.  (The boys are now almost six and four.)

After fueling up on pizza and hot dogs at the Sam’s diner, we go to The Couches!

Here we play Diner, Trains, Good Guys and Bad Guys, and Races!

At the Diner Jack and James go behind the entertainment consoles and buffets  to take our orders for food. Ask for a burger and one boy will race down the “behind aisles” under the mammoth shelving to make our food. He will pretend cook the burger, deliver it to his brother, and it will be brought to us at the order point. “How much?” we ask. “A hundred dollars,”  he replies. He takes our pretend money and gives us too much pretend change. One of us asks for French fries and a Coke. The French fries come, only ten dollars, but they don’t have Coke. So we ask for Pepsi.  (Watchers of the first seasons of SNL will get the joke.)

When we are full of pretend food it’s on to Trains!

My son, Randy, grabs one of those flat bed carts and the boys pile on the Train.  The couches become Couch Stations Brown, Black and Tan, and the Train flies up and down the aisle, stopping at each Station so boys can jump off or onto the Train, while Dave and I make train sound effects and whistles.  (We are ALWAYS courteous of other shoppers who happen to become disoriented along the train tracks, and we make way for them.  Sometimes we invite them to join us.  That becomes problematic when their own children want to stay and play with us.)

After Trains, it’s Good Guys and Bad Guys. The boys are the Bad Guys who pretend to break non-existent laws, and we adults are the Good Guys who catch them and lock them in the Jail that is made up of rolls of carpet standing vertically in a bin at the end of the aisle. One of us is a very inept Guard (me or Dave) and Randy is the Bounty Hunter who tracks the Bad Guys down behind the stacks of boxes when they escape, and returns them to Jail over and over and over and over….  There’s lots of running, and shrieking, and laughter, but we have never been asked to keep down the noise or quit the rough-housing, because we are very polite Bad Guys and Guards and Bounty Hunters.

Next come the Races!  I am the Starting Gun, Dave is the Finish Line, and Randy is the Fierce Competitor who tries and fails to win the races. He is also the Handicapper from time to time to make sure James gets to beat his brother (who runs like a small gazelle) for his fair share of the races. There is lots of shouting and squealing during Races. We often have folks watching the competitions, but, again, we are very polite to our fans, and make sure they can do their shopping while we go on about the very real business of Races.

After Races we proceed to the Shows at the Bakery! Here it is like Boss of Cakes on the Food Channel, but for real. Randy pushes the boys up to the window in a shopping cart to watch the ladies frost the gourmet cupcakes and decorate the special order cakes.  We ooh and aah like it’s the 4th of July, and we applaud when a tray of finished cupcakes goes on the baker’s rack, or when a spectacular birthday cake is boxed up for its event.

The ladies sometimes blush at the attention. The boys are so very appreciative of their artistry. And, sometimes, a lady will give them each a cookie because they are so cute.  (Grown-ups never get cookies. We are no longer cute.) We are always sad when the show is over, but we cheer ourselves up by buying a tray of cupcakes to take home!

Now it’s time for Snacks and Ninja Warriors! Jack and James hit all the sample stations for fruit and veggies and “power” drinks, and then it’s off to the freezer section. The freezer cases sit up on platforms of cement about six inches high and six inches wide, like a balance beam for Ninja Warriors to traverse from one end of the case to the other. It’s important not to fall off into the Hot Lava, because then you’ll die and have to start over! As usual, this also involves lots of shrieking and laughing, and it’s harder to be courteous when there’s Hot Lava in the mix. But we do our best, and most people enjoy the spectacle, especially the employees. They have gotten to know us and all the boys’ shenanigans.

Finally, it’s off to the last and bestest stop of the day.  Books! (Randy and we have actually managed to get our groceries through all this play.)

BOOKS!!!

Sam’s has one of the best retail libraries ever! It’s great because it has a HUGE selection of kids’ Books, and under the stands that hold the piles and piles of Books a small boy can crawl into a nook or cranny and “read” to himself or his brother from whatever catches his fancy! Or one or both of them can entice the grandma to get on the floor and read TO them for the longest time. This is where we wind down from the previous two hours of make believe and Boss of Cakes and foraging for food and Ninja Warriors. We read of dinosaurs and Lego Batman, of Halloween creatures and gross poetry.  We look at the see-through anatomy of a whale or a frog, and try to read hieroglyphics on an Egyptian tomb. Such magic!

And just as it goes every day of a child’s life, it’s time to end this session of play. But, in my opinion, it is the best kind of play. It is unstructured and child-led. It springs from their imaginations. They make the rules and establish the parameters. We adults are just there as props, there to laugh and abet and relish every scenario they create. And maybe to even recapture the innocence of our own childhoods, long lost.

Who needs a fancy theme park when practically everywhere you go there is a Sam’s Playground?..

You should try it some time.  If you don’t have kids or grandkids of your own, borrow some and treat yourself. Be raucous, have fun, let your imagination fly free. Follow the lead of the kids.

Cause growing up IS awfuller than all the awful things that ever were.

I’ll (try to) never grow up.  Not me!