Mirror Mondays: The Past is a Foreign Country

I recently went back to my old hometown of Jacksonville, IL, to visit my mom and dad. My dad is 96 and will be 97 in just under two months. He is doing pretty well, if you ask me. But this was also my first trip back to Jacksonville since my Jackson project had taken full steam.

Jacksonville of 2026 is not the same as Jacksonville of 1986. And neither is the same as Jackson, IL, of 1986.

But if you look hard enough, you will see the similarities.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Jacksonville is trying very hard to improve its image. So they are rebuilding the downtown area. Bringing in new shops, restoring buildings.

But they have a long way to go. This is not really uncommon for towns of this size in Illinois. We see it in nearby Ottawa, IL. It's about the same size, same sorts of history, and there is a booming tourist trade. Same with Woodstock, IL, and Long Grove, IL. So I think Jacksonville is doing all the right things; they just need what a lot of places need. More money.

Jacksonville, IL is an old town. Established in 1825, it has some history. This also gives me a good excuse to say Jackson was established in 1827, or whenever I publish, to say it was 200 years ago. But that age is showing. Buildings that were merely old back in 1986 look positively ancient and run-down now. I found a tree I used to play around, and the bark is completely white. The places I used to hang out are gone; new ones have taken their place.  Some things are the same. A lot is different. But I will say that this newfound desire for the town to explore its own history is making my job here a lot easier. The image above provided some good research material, and I picked all of that up at my hotel.

Jacksonville of 2026 is not the same place as Jacksonville of 1986. Buildings have disappeared. Businesses have changed. Roads and commercial development have altered how people move through town. Especially in the downtown. Trees have grown or vanished. Signs, parking lots, lighting, storefronts, cars, clothing, and dozens of things tell you that you are looking at 2026. The people are different too. 

The real Jacksonville of 1986 also isn't Jackson. Jackson is deliberately a mirror.

All The World's A Stage

Jackson is like a model I am kitbashing. I have all the pieces to say the Enterprise A and D, but what I am building is something more akin to a ship from the same period as the Enterprise A, but it is really the USS Challenger. And...this is something I am actually doing, so this analogy feels really right to me, even if it might not be all that clear to you, the reader. Sorry. 

I have a stage (Central Illinois), I have the set (Sal's Pizza, Jackson Public High, MacAlister College, Oak City), and I have my supporting characters (Larina, Stephanie, Rowan, Andy); I am just missing those all-important lead characters. That's you, by the way. The people who will pick this up and move forward.

But the "kits" I bought to build this stage are all labeled "Jacksonville." And the pieces are "Leo's Pizza," "JHS," "MacMurry College," and "Elm City." I am just reassembling them. But these pieces have been in storage for 40 years, and my instructions are a combination of old, faded instructions (memory) and new instructions for the newer models I find online (the real Jacksonville of 2026).  

So...my stage looks different. It is built from memory. That is not just fine. That's good world-building.

It means I have something as a placeholder (memory) until I can get more creative with it. 

But not everything in Jackson is coming from Jacksonville, and not everything is coming from the 1980s

Renee Sylvi Jäneläinen is based on a couple of people I knew, one of the (many) Rhiannon's from my AD&D games, and the oft-mentioned but so-far-never-seen Renee of Renee's Tea Shoppe. 

I wanted to bring Renee's Tea Shop over to Jackson, but I was very recently reminded why that would not work in Jackson of 1986. First, I wanted Renee as a teenage foreign exchange student. Secondly, I was sitting in an upscale coffee shop in Jacksonville last weekend (Elm City Roastery) and telling my wife how I would have killed for a place like this 40 years ago, but it never would have worked because that is not where Jacksonville "was" back then. I mentioned the tourism above, and Elm City Roastery is exactly one of the things that make Jacksonville of 2026 work. So Renee's Tea Shoppe has to wait. 

"Strawberry Fields" as a record store, and a maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn't head shop is based on a very real place. Penny Lane in nearby Springfield, IL. But Penny Lane was important because it was where I could get records I couldn't find in Jacksonville. And there was the appeal of going somewhere "forbidden."  

But there is also more. 

Jackson remembers things Jacksonville never experienced. It remembers the Crimson Cougar stalking the edge of town. It remembers teenagers encountering the Mochem. It remembers the Mauvaiseterre Hag. It remembers Larina Nichols walking into Paula's on a Saturday afternoon, Candy Mercer driving far too fast through town, and the Mercers' cat, "Pringles", sitting in a window watching something no one else can see.

Jackson works well as Jacksonville 86 + supernatural goings-on. But it has to be more than that. 

And I think that distinction is important. I am not trying to create a historically perfect reconstruction of Jacksonville in 1986. I am not writing a history book. I am building a place where people can play a horror game.

Don’t misunderstand me in that history is unimportant. It is the other way around: the real history is what gives Jackson some weight.  The streets need to feel right. The colleges need histories of their own. The old houses need to look like they have been standing there for generations. The downtown needs to feel like a Midwestern downtown in 1986, not like someone dropped a collection of "80s stuff" into a modern town. If I get those things right, then when I add a witch, a haunted house, or something moving through the cornfields at night, those things have something solid to stand on.

Then again, being authentic and being accurate are two different matters.

My memory can be faulty. I may have mixed up a building in my mind or conflated two stores into one, or carry a memory of 1985 as if it were timeless. Or I will come across something in Jacksonville’s actual past that I was unaware of back when I was living there and think Jackson ought to have its own take on it. At times I make changes simply because the town calls for them.

This is where the mirror is involved.

Jacksonville gives me the shapes. Memory gives me the colors. Forty years of gaming gives me the monsters hiding in the shadows. That is Jackson.

I went to Jacksonville looking for Jackson.

I didn't find it.

I found something better.

I found the place I remembered as Jackson.

I don't need a historically accurate Jacksonville, circa 1986, for Jackson. I just need a Jackson that feels like a believable Midwest town in 1986.

And then I can leave it all to you to bring it to life.