Rick Williams

Our commercial sign shop in Longview, up in wooded and wet northeast Texas, would have to be one of the strangest sign shops in the country. It is in the city limits, but surrounded by small fields, wooded acreage and water.

This is home now, and it is ours, but it took a while to get here. After leasing our first two locations for much longer than we should have, about a dozen years ago we bought our first shop, and later leased it out and bought this place because of its location and its uniqueness.  Those purchases were some of the best business moves we’ve ever made.

The original purchase of our current location was the shop building and about two acres, and then we bought an adjoining acre to the east that was mostly water. The bulk of the property was a man-made pond about 50 years old, surrounded by a variety of beautiful trees.

A couple of years ago, all the land behind us came up for sale, and having lost some of my fear of borrowed money, and wanting control over what would be happening around us, those six acres or so became part of the Rick’s Sign Co. compound.

So, though we make our living making signs, the property we operate from is part sign shop, part wilderness, part roadside park, and part protected wildlife habitat. I could literally cast a line out my office window and catch my dinner. When you walk around the pond, the fish, nearly all small, follow you around waiting for a handout. Deer, squirrels, raccoons, roam out back, and 12 ducks and a goose live in and around the pond, the yard, and on occasion up on the front porch.

The ducks are an eclectic bunch, acquired as chicks and raised on the premises, and include four mallards, two black ducks, some creatively colored ducks including “Dirty Harry” and “Rusty,” plus “Lucy-Goosey,” a large white goose who pretty much runs the show.

The ducks eat quite a lot. I feed them when I arrive around 7:30 a.m., or Frances might do the honors around 8 if I hadn’t yet. Then she feeds them again when she leaves at 5:30. This feed adds up, but they are good company, entertain our clients, and guard the place when we’re not around.

On the first Monday in November, something happened out of the ordinary and our guard ducks and Lucy let us know about it. It was late in the afternoon, but about an hour before the staff leaves, and the birds started making an inordinate amount of racket. At first no one paid them any attention, but they quacked and honked around the front porch, then around my office window, and back to the porch, making a considerable effort of it.

After a few minutes of their protesting, it began to cross our minds that there may be a varmint or snake outside that they did not like, and it must be in front of the shop. When Frances went outside on the porch to investigate, she saw nothing except for a baker’s dozen of birds, and none of them quit squawking.

In a minute she came back in smiling, having figured out the problem, and the problem was as simple as this: our ducks refuse to recognize daylight savings time. It was a bit after 4:30 p.m., about an hour before Fran’s quitting time, when she feeds the birds each day. However, on Sunday the clocks had been changed as it was now daylight savings time for the rest of the winter, but, the birds were having none of it.

As far as they were concerned it was already after 5:30 as their internal clocks had not changed. Like Arizonans, they knew the real time… which was dinner time, and quitting time. And they were right, of course.

I’m the only one around here who doesn’t know when quitting time is. My staff does, the birds do, but not the boss. Oh, I’m not complaining as I have two homes anyway, one where I lay my head at night, and then this place. It’s a hectic, stressful enterprise most of the time, but only few steps from nature at all hours. For a sign shop, it’s one of a kind, and like the American dream of owning your own home, owning you own business is a worthy goal too.

And I’ll just keep working and not watching the clock. I’ll let all the others be time keepers. I’ve got payments to make on the strangest sign shop around, home for wildlife, birds and workaholics, but home just the same. I hope your shop is doing well, all your ducks are in a row, and you have a really great month.