The Jaycee Mouse Game

It’s strange how you remember little factoids about your past life.


When I travel, I often slip into a trance in the plane-----conjuring up old memories. The one I remembered this past week while waiting to take-off from Detroit airport was my memories of the “Mouse Game” at the Bethalto Homecoming.

Here’s what I remember-----

The Bethalto Jaycees had a big spinning table…a pentagon-shaped top…..and there were numerous holes on the outer perimeter of the spinning table that were color-coded. Each color represented betting odds. Patrons would walk up….plop down a dollar on a color and wait for the Jaycees to spring into action.

The star of the show was a small gray or brown mouse. The mouse was put into a wooden handheld box and the table would get a spin. Then----when the time was right-----the mouse would be hurled out of the box onto the spinning table and be forced to seek cover by scampering into the nearest colored hole. If he ran into your color----you won.

I remember trying to really win on this game by being a part of the mouse catching team for the Jaycees. My old friend, Eric Stevenson and I actually decided we could strike it rich by visiting Worden area farms and catching a bevy of rodents. The Jaycees would pay us for the mice----and all would be happy. The problem was----we were lousy mouse catchers. That idea also went down a hole. I don’t think we caught one.

Imagine, if you will, how this game would be reviled by a host of people these days. First, the animal lovers would say the mice were being mistreated---and they probably would have a point.

The Jaycees were a wonderful group…and they did many positive things in town. But I would have thought a few ministers might have had a problem with the obvious gambling element in the game. I loved it….and probably dropped a few bucks on the game when I was 12 years old. If I was dropping the mortgage today on a riverboat, I’d trace my problems back to the Bethalto Homecoming midway and those mice. It looked like a pretty innocent game back in 1965----but today it probably would have been featured on 60 Minutes as an example of the cultural erosion of Middle America.

One other thing I remember….

Today--if we heard a number of young women scream bloody murder at a public event, we would fear the worst….

But back in the day at the Homecoming….it just meant…

One of the mice got away from the game.