In Bud Santos,

fun-loving energy meshes well with his job as toy store manager job.
By Lindsay Tice
Staff Writer

AUBURN – In the toy store crowded with Christmas shoppers, a little boy catches manager Bud Santos’ attention.

Carrying the store’s blue mechanical pig under one arm, his gold-rimmed sunglasses sitting snugly on his nose, the blond boy wanders among the games, dolls and cars.

“You like that pig, huh?” Santos asks as the boy walks past with his mother. “I like those glasses. They’re super cool.”

The little boy grins. Santos grins too.

The mother doesn’t buy anything. But for Santos, who has managed the Auburn Mall’s KB Toys store for 24 years, his sales figures mean less to him than seeing happy kids and happy families.

“Whenever you get down, all you have to do is watch a couple of kids and it gets you centered in your life,” he said.

At 51, Santos has spent nearly half his life selling toys.

“I’ve been here long enough that I now have kids coming in with their kids,” he said.

The oldest of four boys born and raised in western Massachusetts, Santos’ own childhood was filled with little green army men, GI Joe action figures and board games. It was the theater that caught his attention after high school.

But the job market was slow in 1975, when Santos received a bachelor’s degree in technical theater from Emerson College in Boston. With few options, he joined a Massachusetts department store selling men’s clothing.

It was a job that paid the bills, Santos said, but “it was never any fun. It was really all business.”

In the late 1970s, he joined KB Toys, then a small franchise based in Massachusetts. In 1979, he agreed to run a new store the company wanted to open in Auburn.

“It was the smartest thing I ever did,” he said.

In a small toy store, the gregarious husband and father found a job perfect for his fun-loving energy.

“Most people don’t mind coming in and buying toys, In fact, they look forward to it,” he said. “People are in a happier mood.”

A former scout leader and model train enthusiast, Santos is a kid at heart. His store reflects it.

A train set runs noisy circles on a track at the front of the store as a Buzz Lightyear doll spins suspended from the ceiling above it. Toys are scattered throughout the store and kids are encouraged to use them. Employees routinely open sealed packages so children or their parents can try out new products.

Santos is happy to see his youngest customers hold pretend tea parties or get down on the floor to play with the popular mechanical pig.

“What’s really cool is when mom and dad sit down and play, too,” said Santos, who likes to recall the father who came in eager to buy his son his first train set, even though the boy was less than an hour old.

After 24 years in the same store, Santos knows a lot of his customers by sight. And they know him.

“This is one of our favorite places,” said Barbara Griebel, giving Santos a hug after he helped her find a Harry Potter Lego set. She stopped at the store last week to pick up a Christmas toy for charity and to update Santos on her now-grown grandson.

Santos remembers the Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo trends. But it’s the old-fashioned toys – race cars, Lego building blocks and action figures – that have stayed consistent over the years, he said. Board games are his favorite.

“You can’t find a cheaper form of entertainment,” he said.

As the world changes, Santos said, children seem more sophisticated.

But in his toy store, he still sees kids who carry stuffed animals. He sees children who want video games, but who also want mom and dad to join them in a tea party.

“I think kids still need to be played with,” he said. “I don’t think kids change that much, really.”

ltice@sunjournal.com

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