Gyped cars thru high school selling '55, 56 & 57 Chevys to other high school kids while working as 'Lot Boy' at a Pontiac store. Very big deal getting the title BTW. The others were called porters and Lot Boy meant I could pick up the keys and gas up the muscle cars with purchase order authority. Drove new GTOs every day. Burned off the tires in a Superbird. Had a 427 Galaxie 500 that I should have kept!

Went to four years of art school in painting and drawing and detailed cars on the side to pay for tuition. Gyped a few more sleds. Tuition was $171.00 a semester!

Went to grad school in architecture and gyped a few more shooters and ran the detail shop for a Mopar dealer.

Right out of grad school knew I never wanted to be a boring architect, so with a few dollars of savings, I opened a detail shop/body shop which grew into 20 or so employees in a couple of years. Opened a sign shop with a buddy of mine from art school and learned how to lick letter while continuing the auto shop. Sold out of all of it and opened an official automotive restoration business in a huge building with many employees. Did alot of late 40s cars and many muscle cars. Became a firetruck restoration person. Opened a medical equipment refurbishing business rebuilding dental chairs and other medical equipment. Opened a wholesale auto auction with another 40 employees. Ran the restoration shop and other businesses for ten years until my doberman died and sold it all off to go run a Chevy store for another three years, a hundred miles west of KC. One day there I tried to find someone to come in and paint our showroom windows.

Well, Ocupational Therapy was supposed to be my lifetime career. My husband owned a utility construction business and I helped a little, but my heart was at the hospital. Back in 81 he had a severe stroke and his health went downhill from then on. I had no choice but to take over the business and manage it.

Tain't no fun for a woman ditch digger laying gaslines. The only time I enjoyed myself was when I was young enough to go out on the job to replace an absent worker. I also enjoyed bidding jobs, the bigger the better. Guess it was the challenge and competition that turned me on.

When I got out of that I was so old I was having trouble getting myself out of bed, so I decided that O.T. was not an option for me. I have this pet peeve about therapists who only do range of motion. I have to see results.

Retired as a Warrant Officer and started making signs 5 years ago.

Oh I forgot.... along the way, bartender, cook, deck scrubber, painter, shoe shiner, laundry, seamstress, trained killer (LOL) and anything else they told me to do.

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Tony B ]

Age: 11 Lettered bicycles that I raced

12: Started Little Gaber Signs(had my own business cards too)

14 to 17: Part-time janitor at the post office (never went postal though!)

18: Went to college for one year(advertising design)

19: Interviewed at a signshop on a whim during summer break... got a job

20-27: Worked at 3 different shops

27 to 33: Home based sign business

33 to 36: Downtown sign shop location with one full time employee

I enjoy the sign business, but I really have a life outside of that as well. Including hunting, enjoying dirt track racing events, spending time with my wife and 2 kids, playing power volleyball and cruising the country trails on my 4-wheeler.

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Kurt Gaber ]

After school I completed a 3 1/2 year apprenticeship as a signpainter in Switzerland

Went to the military for a while but didn't do too much damage

Printing bumperstickers for a couple years

Stayed home to raise the little monsters

Decided to pack it up and go farming in Canada

Couldn't stand it without painting and started bugging the local signman in his shop

Became friends, then business partners, finally I took over the shop a year ago

an old man once told me, son, find something you love to do and you'l never have to work a day in your life. he was right.

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Mike Lavallee ]

My first job was delivering papers. I always hated collecting the money and was always short paying my newspaper bill. In the end, I got canned.

In high school, I worked as a janitor partime, before getting a job at a small styrofoam company that made packaging. The owners had enough faith in me to offer me a fulltime job as a leadhand with my own crew at 17. It was hot, hard work in a steamy enviornment, but I have many good memories.

My training in high school was geared towards a career in drafting. I had always been interested in drawing and my goal was to get a job at General Electric as a draftsman.

My worse subject at school was chemistry. I failed it miserably and never got my Grade 12 as a result. Imagine my shock when GE hired me as a chemist!

That job lasted 3 months. I wore a suit and tie, had a secretary and my own office. My Grandmother was thrilled, but I hated it. One day I picked up the phone and begged the styrofoam owners to take me back.

In early 1993, I followed my best friend to a job at Canada Wire and Cable. We made elecrical wire for the automotive and building industry. During the next 110 years I worked as a spooler, extruder operator and finally making the PVC used as insulation on the wire.

By 1975, I had discovered the sign business. My new interest developed into a partime business and in 1983, we went fulltime making signs under the name The SignMan.

The business outgrew our 2 car garage so we rented a 40' x 40' shop. We were there until my heart attacks started in 1994.

Our next few years were hell. Lots of sickness, dispair and financial challenges. Then a miracle happened. A small website I started as a hobby in late 1995 developed into The Letterhead Website and then Letterville. Who would have ever thought?

I never got an allowance as a child so I had to create my own income hehehe. In Junior high I was macrame queen and other crafts as well...such as pottery, jewelry design, embroidering jeans, etc. Always painting...back drops for plays and football games, etc. That turned into murals for money, along with the calligraphy.

Senior high, I had been babysitting all my life (the oldest) and for other folks, started slingin pickles for a steady check whilst getting pretty heavy in the ceramics. I began writing for the school paper and submitting illies and charicatures. We got to play with geisso and I found it could be spread on a piece of glass and peeled up when it dried, like a sticker...hehehe. Yup, you got it, I was the sticker pimp in my school yard hehehe! Almost every locker had my handiwork on or in it.

Folks were asking me to put their girlfriend's name on the passenger door of their cars, this turned out to be pretty lucrative for a spell, young love n all, hehehe. That turned into, "Hay, my dad needs some lettering done on his truck!" and so I hopped a bus up to Atlanta one day to look for a sign shop. I figgered I needed to know more about what I was doing, hehehe.

They had no idea that I could do calligraphy, I had no idea it was a big deal. They gave me a lettering brush and I remember thinkin this pen has a wobbly nib, but ok...For SALE, it was!

I got the red paint off of my hands with some mineral spirits and never looked back. The next week, we're doing sho-cards for the Magic Garden, complete with attatched glossies and an illegal amount of glitter stars...hehehe! Sho-carding is where I really fell in love with Script lettering, the perfect letter is so satisfying!

Since then, my life is a blur of working outta my trunk mostly, but a little bit in the printing industry doing every thing but the fork lift and the presses.

When I was old enough, I slung coffee in the mornings and drinks at night, for the money and the jokes. I slung my fair share of pickles before 16...a few pizzas after.

When my girls came along, I had a play pen and my my sign kit set up under a window in a strip mall and before I could finish the first one, more folks were asking me to hit their place, till it got dark and the next day I went by and realized I had zig-zagged and done the whole strip hahaha!

I took some pics and started my portfolio, my mother was soooooo happy! I wish I had listened to her earlier about taking pictures...hehehe. I learned how to work like a monkey all summer so I could stay home with my girls when it was cold.

Since then I've done race cars, bill boards, menu copy for days, sho-cards, banners, walls, 4'x whatevers, windows, awnings, tennis courts (logos for Pringle Dixon Pringle clients, even!) more murals, helmets, instrument cases, bikes, and fliers.

I tried to retire a couple of years ago for health reasons, but for sainty reasons, I dusted off the old kit and am determined to make some more money! I missed my brushes so much! It might just be the paint fumes, but I think one of my fitches winked at me the other day!

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: Linda Silver Eagle ]

Yes ! This certainly has been fun hearing what everyone did BS(before signs) Thanks for sharing!!

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: cheryl nordby ]

However, I went to college for Journalism. I was good at sportswriting.

After graduating, I drove to another state and was hired by a newspaper. On the drive home, I was hit with the realization that I HATED sportswriting, and what I really wanted to be was a signpainter!

After calling the editor of the paper and getting chewed out, a week later I got a job at a signshop!

Took several years of evening practice before I could consider myself a "signpainter." But I was happy!!

Lawn Mowing, Gardening and Pet Sitter. Kid stuff.

Typesetter's Devil & Proofreader. Often wish I'd stayed in it.

sold Auto Parts. Dealing with the crazy public. Yukk!

Edison grunt. Hard work, office politics.

U.S. Navy. Possibly the worst job in the world.

Art Student & Tire Retreader. Tires - the filthiest job. Garbage collector would be cleaner.

Car Battery Assembler. Lead and Sulphuric Acid, boy are THEY nice.

Sign Painter. Least money - Most Fun.

Since/During Sign Painting -

Ice Cream Merchandiser. Lousy treatment, poor pay - I'll NEVER buy Haågen-Dåsz

Courier. 14 hour shifts, $3.00/hour (in '97)

Swimming Pool Cleaner. Harsh chemicals, cold water, dead rats and bugs in the filters, no place to go to the restroom, yapping, biting dogs - those guys don't get paid enough.

Shipping Clerk / Parts Assembler. Biggest challenge!; Making UPS deadline every day. Most exercise I ever got, fair pay - got me out of $12,000 Credit Card debt in 18 months.

Census Crew Leader. 80 to 100 hours a week/pay for 40. Confusing forms/worthless enumerators/angry residents. NEVER AGAIN!

Hang-Arounder at Disneyland. Best pay - most boring.