Meaningful Returns

Despite the wonderful reality of having a Piggly Wiggly and a public pool and a library all within a two block radius, the town I grew up in had fewer homes than my current neighborhood in Raleigh, and it was a big deal when they built the strip mall with the Food Lion and Subway and nail salon “in the suburbs” (i.e., a quarter mile past the last house in town). But, you know, stores weren’t really a thing in Carthage. And Amazon didn’t exist. So, if you needed something that couldn’t be found at a Piggly Wiggly or a Food Lion (and later, a Dollar General), then you better jump in the car for a while. And if you couldn’t find that thing at the Wal-Mart 15 miles away, well, you better jump in the car for a longer while.

In those days, my family was not exactly keen on Halloween, and I can only attribute that to the fact that I won a plaque for being the best costumed four-year-old in the town one year (I was a hobo), and that sort of was one of those highs you can only come down from. What else is there for Halloween when you win the costume contest at age four? And also our home was on the main drag in Carthage and trick-or-treaters and pranksters were prone to visiting our house way past bedtime.

So my parents (mainly my dad, if I had to guess) came up with the idea that every Halloween, we would turn all the lights off at the house, skip town, head 50 miles north on what was then the two-lane version of US 1, and spend a night out on the town in Cary. This night out on the town generally consisted of three things: dinner at Ryan’s (the same thing as Golden Corral), going to Marshall’s, and, my personal favorite after the endless buffet, hitting up Play It Again Sports.

Sometimes we bought things at those stores; more often than not we didn’t, at least not in the early days. But you know what? Play It Again Sports was my thing, man. There was so much stuff in there that I couldn’t even dream of owning new, but, for some reason I wasn’t fully aware of, people had gotten rid of perfectly usable football helmets and baseball gloves and rollerblades and golf clubs, and here was one glorious store that put all of these amazing things within reach.

I say all this because I went into Play It Again Sports yesterday. This was a different one than the one in Cary I grew up going to, but they’re all the same. The same smells, the same signage, the same treasure trove. And as I was looking for a golf club and some cheap, barely used golf balls to eventually lose in the woods, I was reminded of something very important: family ritual.

We are shaped by events and spaces and smells from the earliest of ages, watching our parents and siblings, and whether the parents mean for these rituals to have lasting impact on the kids or not, they do. So be intentional about the rituals, teach your kids to hunt for adventures and bargains and life-changing experiences by hunting for them yourselves and simply bringing them along. They will remember; I know I do.