← Columns

The Death of Pioneerville

The Source

I once owned a jewelry store . . . sort of. I only remember it because it made lots and lots of money . . . sort of. In fact, I made enough money selling diamonds rings and ruby-encrusted watches that I could have retired at the age of 13 . . . sort of. My eighth-grade teacher, Bill Roberts, set up a mini economy in our Perry Grade School classroom. We were each told to start a business on paper, keep the books, buy and sell, and create our own little economy. We called our town Pioneerville, named after the Perry High School mascot. In the process of running out little town we learned how to write checks, how to create savings accounts, and make a profit. When he announced the plan he asked us to choose a business for ourselves. I created a jewelry store because jewels were expensive and my classmates would have to pay top dollar. I wanted the Cadillac dealership but my buddy Gary took that before I got my hand in the air. I think Mr. Roberts gave us each $10,000 seed money and he was the banker. Of course if I had been smarter I’d have followed Cheryl’s lead and started a grocery store. My classmates had to go her store every day and there were entire days when no one stopped by my place to purchase a million dollar watch. In fact, I eventually had to lower the price to a mere half-million to get rid of the darned thing. I’m sure that we did lots of neat things in eighth-grade but our little experiment in American capitalism is the only thing I can remember clearly. Mr. Roberts was also our basketball coach and due to the talent available in Perry Grade School’s eighth-grade class of 1962, our season on the court was equally forgettable. But his little economy of ours….heck, we lived for it! We even thought about it when school was done for the day. Any teacher who can pull off that sort of miracle is surely a candidate for sainthood. Mr. Roberts couldn’t believe that when he began class each morning we had already made deals over the phone on the night before and were waiting in line when he’d open up his bank. I remember the bank clearly. It was a Swisher Sweet cigar box. So while President Kennedy was enjoying his second year in office, the Beatles failed their audition for Decca records, Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro, and “The Twist” was banned from all Catholic schools, the little entrepreneurs of Perry eighth grade were busy making Pioneerville one of the most promising boomtowns on the Pike County prairie. And perhaps the most wonderful benefit of this exciting lesson in economics was the mood of enthusiasm and friendship that it built in our class. Former enemies now had to deal with each other if they were going to survive. The class bully was a girl who ran a flower shop and learned that if you pushed someone’s face into the mashed potatoes at lunch, you’d just lost a customer for your petunias that afternoon. We didn’t know the word “utopia,” but I think that at least in economic terms we’d created one. Then Chuck ruined it all. Chuck was sort of a dangerous looking character who was always looking for an angle. Chuck snuck up to Mr. Roberts one day and told him that he’d found a cheaper place to buy gas for his taxi service in a filling station in the next (imaginary) town. Mr. Roberts admired Chuck’s chutzpah and told him to go ahead, which of course eventually put Richard’s Mobil Station out of business. This gave Roberta the idea to shop for her groceries in the next imaginary town down the line and Bill’s IGA went out of business. By the time the school cooks had hauled the annual Christmas tree into the lunchroom our little town was ruined. Pioneerville was dead. The study of economics is complicated and any town’s business community must deal with factors much more complicated than the issues my fellow adolescents had to face in 1962, but one fact remains: if you don’t patronize it, you loose it. There’s hardly a local entrepreneur who hasn’t gritted his or her teeth to hear people say, “I wish that Jacksonville had an X-brand restaurant/clothing store/hardware outlet/grocery store…” then the very same people ignore what we do have available and drive 30 or 50 or a hundred miles to buy essentially the same thing. Christmas is coming, folks. If you truly want to give a gift that keeps on giving, then take the time to explore our local shopping. I bought a book for my Goddaughter at the bookshop on the square. The owner pays taxes to and utility bills to the city of Jacksonville. Then I walked down the street for a bowl of great chili at On the Rocks, also a local taxpayer and purchaser of food. I tipped the waitress who lived in Jacksonville then bought gas before I left town. Mayor Ezart didn’t give me the “Citizen of the Year” citation, but it felted darned good to know that my bucks got planted right back in home turf. Take that, Chuck!