I think I've begun to notice the warning signs that I've been doing sign work for longer than I thought. Things like...
Seeing a truck go by that I lettered and thinking back on that time as the "good old days".
Seeing a truck go by that looks like crap, then remembering I did it back when I first started.
Old race car customers call to have me letter a car they just built...for their grandson.
A repeat customer that I did a sign for when Reagan was still in office calls.
When I dropped a brush, I used to say whoops and pick it up. These days, I drop the brush and grunt AS I pick it up.
Rapid
Posted by John Lennig (Member # 2455) on :
When I am in different parts of the city/region, and recall where all the old Signshops used to be,and the ones I "tried out for" back then!
John
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
I'm so friggin' old...the dirt where I had been don't remember anymore than I do.
Jack
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
I fergot was I was gonna say
Oh yeah, I remember now.
When I think of the ol'days I think of how fortunate I was to be able to make things last without worrying, the paint was great, the brushes were great and the customers were always friendly. I was fortunate to work continuously in any enviroment hot or cold with not a care in the world, knowing that everything will work out just perfect. I was fortunate enough to go anywhere in this country and do what I do best.
Not like today where the same companies live on reputation rather than quality and when you call them, they ask you for the batch number and on the other end haven't a clue to what its all about.
I was fortunate
[ July 03, 2007, 02:26 AM: Message edited by: Joey Madden ]
Posted by Donald Thompson (Member # 3726) on :
Had a customer drop by yesterday with a sign I did 9 1/2 yrs ago for me to change the phone number. He still had the original receipt with him. I made a copy of it just for old times sake. The sad part is that I would have charged him the same today as I did back then for the same sign. I must have overcharged him back then. The sign was still in great shape though.
Posted by Donna in BC (Member # 130) on :
You know you've done this for a long time when a customer approaches you with some work done for them long ago and you think, "That's nice! Who originally did that?" When in fact it was me. LOL
Posted by George Perkins (Member # 156) on :
We recently rode through a town I lived in when I first started in the business. We came up on a business that I painted my first sign for money for back in 1972. IT WAS STILL UP!!!!!!!!!!!! Faded somewhat, but still quite legible. Of course the camera was at home
Joey, I hear ya about companies living on reputation, all the while killing ours. And what's with the batch number crap? I've never gotten so much as an "I'm sorry" out of them, let alone another can of paint, or perish the though, compensation for the labor involved in re-doing the job. On the bright side, I undrstand Dupont, a company that has always put out a good product, is coming out with a line of striping urethane.
Posted by Raymond Chapman (Member # 361) on :
A few years ago Jeanne and I were in Abilene and went by a popular barbeque place that had been a favorite hang-out while we were in college. The orginal owner's son now was managing the business and he had a small glassed case with "artifacts" from the old days.
Right there in the center was a small menu that I had hand lettered in 1964. It brought back memories of me complaining to Toby (the owner) that sandwiches were going up to fifty cents.
You know that you've been in the business a long time when your work becomes an exhibit in a museum.
[ July 03, 2007, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Chapman ]
Posted by Dawud Shaheed (Member # 5719) on :
you topped em, Ray.
Posted by Donald Thompson (Member # 3726) on :
I have to agree Dawud. That is incredible Mr. Ray.
Posted by ScooterX (Member # 2023) on :
I remember the first time I used a typesetting machine - it had no screen. You just typed in stuff and hoped you didn't make a mistake.
A few years later the Macintosh came out, and I got to code stuff in Postscript. (yes, hand-coded)
I got to be a beta-tester for a new computer program called Photoshop. Now I don't even know 10 percent of whatt Photoshop can do.
Posted by Dale Flewelling (Member # 2577) on :
Also Ray, when an old customer you used to hand letter for doesn't want vinyl and still likes the hand look, and you get excited to fling the brush again, then your fingers ache for the rest of the day from the pounce wheel.Back a year or so I can remember makin' patterns all day and no problems.
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
When it comes right down to it..... If you have never been called a commercial man, you aint been around that long. What's a commercial man?
This person in a sign shop had many levels of expert qualifications beyond the sign painter title. He or She could, Go out to many spots and clean and polish porcleian faces and sometimes deal with a few amps of electricity when getting too close to the neon contacts. Be on the end of a 75 ft skyhook installing letters using hammerdrills in granite walls Doing wall jobs (not for fun but to make your weeks pay) and when you got through with the wall job, go do a gold leaf window. Lettering (with paint) tractor trailers (coregated) in winter. Spending days trying to dig holes in the frozen tundra. When was the last time you put mitten letters on glass? Working in the sheet metal area building channel letters when things got slow. Installing tiffen panels (20 ft in legth) in the wind. A smaltz job was just ordinary work without fanfare. Coating out (plywood and sanding it smooth) for lettering. Making patterns for billboards until you puke. Cleaning and re-coating beat up boards almost forever. Doing nothing but digging holes until your hands were bleeding for days and spending your nights trying to heal them up. Driving forever to do a job and then your old truck breaks down and your profit goes up in smoke. This is just a few little picadillo's.
BTW how many of you have rode up and down in a dumbwaiter? Who in this crowd remembers getting your chunk of ice from the iceman who was delivering ice for the "Icebox". Do you remember "Coal Shoots" ? Shoveling coal into the furnace or putting a block of ice in front of a fan in summer?
Hollyhocks anyone?
Why did I do this?
Jack
Posted by Anne McDonald (Member # 6842) on :
Meeting up with all the young chaps I worked with in my first sign shop who now own shops of their own!!
Posted by Len Mort (Member # 7030) on :
Great Jack, You have seceded in reminding me how old I really am!
Hammer drills (star drills) I remember so well.
Neon contacts, Never will forget the first jolt from a neon transformer.
Corrugated trailers, hated them any time of the year.
Mitten letters, where great!
Loved building channel letters out of galvanile and solder, loved the smell of hot muriatic acid in the morning.
Dumb waiters, used them and knew a few.
I do remember the ice man and cleaning the ice box. Do you remember the song the ice man by Dick Curless?
Coal shoots, Oh yea, as a kid I remember when they came to fill the coal bin with the scissor lift dump truck, canvas coal bags and carried on their backs every ton of coal to the shute into the coal bin, remember shoveling coal into the furnace and stoking the fire several times a day.
Remember the kerosene fired hot water heater copper tank that if you did not keep an eye on could over heat and take off like a Titan missal.
Oleo margarine, with the yellow dot, that needed to be kneaded.
Worked in many shops, freelance, have done it all!
Fond memories, as Bob Hope always said. Thanks for the memories.
Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
Yup, yup, and yup! All the above!
Forget Bob Hope...rather say thanks for the mammeries!
Posted by Sheila Ferrell (Member # 3741) on :
Oops . . . must'a been breathin' fumes too long . . .
[ July 05, 2007, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: Sheila Ferrell ]
Posted by Sheila Ferrell (Member # 3741) on :
Priceless Mr.Raymond!!
YKYBATAW . . . when people ask you how long you've been at it and you tell them how many years and they give some frame of reference like;
"Well I know you been doin' this a long time 'cause I remember I was in high school when you did my dad's sign and now MY son is in high school . . ."
I don't know whether to react like this: or like this:
lol
Posted by Donald Miner (Member # 6472) on :
Well Jack and Len, you have hit the nail on the head. BTDT myself as the saying goes. I looked at my lettering kit that I bought back in '65 the other day and I realized it probably is worth more as an antique than I paid for it. I do know for a fact that it now costs about 9 times as much to buy one like it, if you could find one that is. As my grand-dad used to say, Time marches on. Have a great life. Don
Posted by Donna in BC (Member # 130) on :
LOL Scooter, when I did a month practicum way back for the city's sign shop, they had a gerber with no screen for cutting vinyl. When I came on board, I showed them how to layer lines of lettering with x and y entries, no screen still, but at least it wasn't one line at a time. THAT was a huge step up for them. Posted by Roy Frisby (Member # 736) on :
"Who in this crowd remembers getting your chunk of ice from the iceman who was delivering ice for the "Icebox"." I was an iceman! Ever notice that smell that's there in a real sign shop when you open the door in the morning. Boy, talk about something evoking memories. I can remember agonizing whether to buy a 6' stepladder or a $7.50 level and not being able to afford both at the same time. Times have changed for the better, even if we don't sometimes realize it. Your haven't lived until you've laid a billboard pattern in the wind. Have a nice life.
Posted by Raymond Chapman (Member # 361) on :
Roy...good to hear from another iceman. My dad managed the ice house in our town and we lived on the same property. I would make the morning ice run with my brother before school and then again in the afternoon. We delivered to both individual homes and the restaurants - blocks to the houses and crushed ice to the restaurants.
My dad had polio as a child and only had use of one arm, but could lift a 300 pound block of ice with that one arm, and he wasn't much bigger than me.
Sorry...this isn't about signs but it does bring back a flood of memories.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
YKYBATAW...when the quickie window splash you did just before Christmas back in 1988 for a local butcher for $40, is still up and being used in 2007, even though the shop has been repainted twice and changed hands twice, and every other window redone, but your old splash seems to just stay there!
Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
Jeese! Stewie....you have those customers too?
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
Si, Stewie's is on a window, yours is protected by the National Park Service at Mesa Verde.
Posted by Deri Russell (Member # 119) on :
Ray I think I'd be really proud to have done something that long ago that was worth putting in a museum! Just think how many years of awesome work you have out there. That's great.
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