Today when I drove into Royalton to get some gas before going off to school, I passed the old drugstore (as one typically does when he goes to Casey’s). As I squeezed the trigger on the pump (as one typically does when he is dispensing gasoline from a gasoline pump), I began to think.
I thought about the drugstore. You know it’s not that bad of a building. It’s long and brick. Even though they’re bricked over now, there are some big windows in the front. It even has a nice location right on mainstreet. 50 years ago I bet it was a really nice.
I’ve only been in the drugstore once, and that was when I was in kindergarden I remember it seemed dark, with large dark wooden booths along the north wall, and a large counter along the other.
Then I had what would be one of the most improbable, yet strangely cool things that could ever happen in the history of Southern Illinois, nay the state, nay In the United States of America. Southern Illinois becomming the next Silicon Valley. And the focal point of this whole revolution would be the Kunkie’s drugstore.
In this dreamworld it would house a small, yet extremly profitable, and fast growing software house. The entire inside of the building be remodeled. Bright white walls and lights would illuminate the two floors. The second floor would house nothing but two rows of workstations. (Several suns, and NT boxes, with a couple of SGI’s in the back.) In the back would be a conference room with a long table, and some modern looking highback swivel chairs. On the wall opposing the table would be a dry erase board, with plenty of blue, red, green, and black markers. There would also be a speaker phone right in the middle of the table along with an overhead projector with one of those transparent LCD displays hooked up to a little shit 486 just to display slides, monitor the automated coke and snack machines, the magic motion led sign, and the webcam.
On the first floor, the booths upfront would remain and be used for little areas to meet with outside people. Conduct television interviews, get pictures taken, that sort of stuff. In the back little areas would be set up for some of the more non coding, yet important things. Finance, marketing, documenting, and some executive things.
The counter, would be left. It may be shortened, but it would still remain large. There at the end would be the receptionist that would answer the phone, maintain the webpage, that sort of stuff.
But one comapny doesn’t constitute a revolution. After word of the drugstore gets out, the whole region would be transformed. Hightech start ups would line the Royalton’s mainstreet and Zeigler’s circle. Intel, Motorola, and others build manufacturing plants in Southern Illinois. Soon people that thought all they could do would be guard prisoners, are now manufactuing circuit boards and chips. “The Backwoods Revolution,” as it is eventaully dubed by Wired (I’m sorry, WIRED) becomes one the hotest stories around. Fortune and Money devote special issues just to this economic miracle, US News rates Southern Illinois as one the top places to live. NPR, CNN, and all the networks talk about it. The founder of the drugstore software house that started it all, is picked by Barbra Walters as one of the most intriguing people of the year. He is interviewed sitting at the drugstore counter by Ted Kopel for one of Nightline’s “Friday Night Specials”, one in their series entitled “Revolution in a Box.”
No this would never happen, but it would be damn cool it did.
