Disneyland may be the happiest place on earth, but the bars and seat belts pinning you down on the roller coasters don’t leave much room for crawlspace. What fun is it to just sit passively and let the machine do the work? Where’s the challenge? Where’s the freedom of mobility?

Last weekend I went to City Museum where, for a mere $7.50, I had ten times more fun crawling through ceiling pipes and scaling recycled logs. The last time I went to Disneyland it set me back a good $35, reduced from $40 because I was with someone with an Orange County zip code. At either place you have little kids to contend with, but if they see you coming through one of those concrete tunnels at City Museum, they scatter like ants (unfortunately they don’t quite squish as easily). Not at Disneyland – nooo, there you have to wait in lines, regardless of size or might, all for a few seconds’ thrill.

Worming my way through narrow avenues of stone and wood, I found, was a phenomenal way to release the pent-up aggression built up over the week. Back in class on Monday, I sat in “The Bible as Literature” and readied my stress reservoir for refilling. Naturally, the topic of evolution came to mind as fellow students pulled out volumes that boasted, “#1 International Bestseller of All Time.” I thought about how much I’d enjoyed my day at City Museum. ‘Why is it so much fun to climb on stuff?’ I wondered. Surely there’s a reason they put swings and jungle gyms at elementary schools.

It occurred to me that simian ancestry must play some key role. Children, in essence, are remarkably like little apes. They’re small, wiry, unclean, often odorous, and thrown outside when overly rambunctious. “Monkey bars”: coincidence? Children are the most primitive and uninhibited form of human, each a reminder of the humble beginnings of man. College students are not too far off, particularly when inebriated. My atypical Sunday afternoon was demonstrative of the essentiality of humoring the innate need to dangle and scuttle and swing that begins to dwindle with advanced age and inhibition and hygiene. At this crucial stage, where we are in limbo between youth and adulthood, I believe it is essential to keep in touch with the former while working toward the latter.

I propose that WU should add to its athletic facilities its own version of the structure at City Museum. Getting downtown is difficult for those without cars, and getting admission is difficult for those without cash (most of us satisfy at least one of these at any given moment). Students should have a more convenient outlet for their need to contact their primal selves. Construction shouldn’t be a problem – the museum made theirs entirely out of recycled materials. Most art students do the same thing on a daily basis. I would think they’d leap at a chance to make something both useful and aesthetically pleasing, all the while reducing the cost of both materials and labor. Surely space isn’t a problem, given the size of our athletic complex. As far as use, there is no doubt in my mind of the popularity it would accrue. Safety, of course, would be a concern. The facility could be closed late at night so as to deter those who might try to crawl around while chemically altered. It could work like any other facility at the complex, complete with organized management under regular hours of operation. If this project is seen as infeasible in less visionary eyes, we should at least get a climbing wall.

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