The year was 1990, Reaganomics was still going strong in George H.W. Bush’s America, and schoolchildren were being indoctrinated to become good capitalists. My sixth-grade class at Sprucewood Elementary School had an entire curriculum dedicated to acting out the rise of civilization, from stone-age survival techniques to the modern marketplace.
The premise, presented to us early in the school year, was that we had washed up on a deserted island with no prospect of rescue and would have to rebuild from scrap. One of our assignments was to invent something from the natural detritus in the wilds of suburban Salt Lake County. I wandered around the undeveloped lots behind our house, finding not much more than sand, before settling on a thin wedge of wood and cheatgrass as my materials. I braided the long grass into two straps of sorts, then tied the brittle straps into holes I had carved into the wood. This, I proclaimed, was a sun visor! It was pretty lousy, but I find it amusing that 11-year-old me already saw sunburn as an important hazard to mitigate in a survival situation.
Throughout the school year, we slowly worked our way up through medieval farming, colonialism, industrialization, and finally, the only truly educational segment of the exercise: Business Day. For Business Day, we were all encouraged to become successful entrepreneurs. We would bring a product to sell to our peers in exchange for fake money that we could in turn use to purchase other products. Everyone was given a small stack of bills to start. After that, it was pure cutthroat capitalism: If no one wanted the crap you were selling, you wouldn’t have any money to spend. Not only would your ideas be exposed to all of your friends as garbage, but you’d also be poor. Reagan would be proud.
It made the most sense to bring something kids would actually want to buy — candy, or if you were really going for broke, used Nintendo games. Of course, any product took some amount of real U.S. money to produce. I wasn’t about to ask my parents for the tens of dollars I’d need for gum and toys. But there was at least one thing I could do on the cheap that also appealed to my wildest ambitions: To write, illustrate, and sell books. I could draw and make money! Xeroxing was basically free.
1990 was the height of popularity for “Where’s Waldo.” My fellow Xennials may remember this cultural phenomenon. “Where’s Waldo” was a series of puzzle books in which one would comb through chaotic illustrations to locate a bespectacled man with a striped shirt and beanie. The detailed artwork was fun, but it’s difficult to imagine spending minutes and even hours staring at something like this. Life before the internet was wild, wasn’t it?
I unapologetically ripped off the idea, designing my main character, “Spot” as a floppy-eared dog with a striped shirt and sunglasses. Those two characteristics were about the only thing that distinguished Spot from any other character on the page. I drew Spot into chaotic scenes at my elementary school and urged readers to also find his math book, pencil, and money.
My plan was to print the books for free at my church, but Mom wasn’t going for that, so she invested a small amount of overhead to have pages professionally printed at Kinkos. I did all of the cutting and binding myself. I was quite proud of the finished product, but of course, also terrified that no one would buy it. I do remember my 11-year-old self-critic whispering that puzzle books are only for nerds.
Our first business day launched in the school cafeteria with each of us taking turns watching our tables and browsing the offerings. My initial sales were off to a slow start. Kids walked by my table with stacks of neon green paper — which doubtlessly looked like a homework assignment — and kept on walking. It might have been a complete flop if one of the teachers didn’t flip through a book and rave about it aloud.
“This is so creative,” she gushed. “So cute!”
She was a well-liked teacher, enough to draw interest, and my books were low-priced enough to generate sales. I ended up selling out of the first edition, mostly thanks to that teacher who no doubt was pumping excessive government money into Sixth Grade Business Day to stimulate the economy.
We had three additional Business Days, and I created two more versions of “Search for Spot.” By the last one, my knuckles were cramping from the pen work and my own interest was wearing thin. How many overcrowded scenes can a single dog even experience and still keep it exciting? The production of these books was a lot of work, not really “free” at all, and I felt jealous of my friends who simply bought a bunch of gum with their parent’s money and raked in the sales. The publishing business is for suckers.
For the fourth Business Day, I somehow talked my Mom into investing significantly more overhead for my significantly less creative idea to make candy airplanes out of packets of gum and Lifesavers. I put together my product and hid them carefully at the top of my closet. My 3-year-old sister, Sara, was a known candy fiend and a skilled thief, and had stolen things out of my closet before. There was no way she could reach this, as even I, a 4-foot-something preteen, could barely scale the shelves to hide them.
My efforts were no match for Sara, who did somehow find my stash and managed to dismantle all of them to steal the single pieces of gum that formed the airplane wings. My anger was white-hot but the damage was done. Mom mentioned something about reprinting old Spot books, which was ludicrous — “no one wants to buy something they already bought, Mom!” Since Sara was only 3, Mom had no choice but to gently reprimand her and then buy me the replacement supplies I needed.
My candy planes were a huge hit. I made as much money with them as I had with my three Spot books and the dozens of hours required to create them combined. It was, as intended, a harsh and yet invaluable lesson into the workings of capitalism, and how I could structure my life for the highest level of success.
Instead, I went into journalism and publishing.
I don't know how to contact you. Email, and your usual writings say I have to be invited. May I please be invited? Rich Runser, richandmar@aol.com
What can I say that you don't already know? Great writing and picture copies. Rich.