Small Business Owners/Working Guys

“Cause there s something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone…”

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down

— Kris Kristofferson

I once watched a television interview in which singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson told how he, a Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Army captain (he flew helicopters in Germany, during the Cold War), resolved to leave the Army and pursue songwriting. To achieve this, he declined a prestigious, West Point professorship (English literature) and, instead, took a janitorial post at Nashville’s Columbia Recording Studio.

Today, Kristofferson has recorded 26 albums and won three Grammy Awards. His songs include “Me and Bobby McGee,” Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and more. In 2004, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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While he was a janitor at Columbia’s studio, Kristofferson also flew oilrig helicopters for a Lafayette, LA firm. He wrote “Help Me Make It through the Night” while his helicopter was tied down on an oil platform.

“It was what I was feeling,” he said.

On one occasion, the hopeful Kristofferson landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash s yard, to promote his songs. In a recent Military.com interview, Kristofferson said, “To be honest, I don t think he was there.” Cash told the story differently. He said Kristofferson stepped out of the helicopter with a cassette tape in one hand and a beer in the other.

Cash, the first person to place the new songwriter on stage (in 1969), quickly befriended Kristofferson. They performed together often, and Kristofferson, a comparative newbie, united with Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in 1985, as The Highwaymen, an outlaw music group.

Outlaw musicians snubbed then-popular, rhinestone-adorned suits and, instead, dressed in denim and leather. Their music also bucked the trends — it was closer to rock than country twang (not that it has vanished).

The Highwaymen’s final release preceded Jennings death on February 13, 2002. Johnnie Cash died on September 12, 2003.

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Prior to West Point, Kristofferson was Phi Beta Kappa at California’s Pomona College. He graduated summa cum laude in literature and received a Rhodes Scholarship to study literature at Oxford. After graduating, he became an Army Ranger helicopter pilot. He also worked construction jobs and, in Alaska, as a railroad-crew firefighter.

At some point in the television interview, Kristofferson looked away from the interviewer and directly into the camera. Unperturbed, he said, “Hey, all of you working guys out there — know that one of us finally made it.” It was an unscripted, personal aside — a declaration of hope for those still dreaming.

I have faith in working guys — and by this, I mean working women, too.

They dream, yes, but also possess a clear view of life; they grab the bull by its horns. Not to take credit from anyone else — corporate presidents, executives, marketers and Indian chiefs — but we often overlook that the nation’s gears turn because some people are willing, everyday, to get their hands dirty.

Jim Wywrot, an industrial/business writer, said, “You may read in the business section about a merger or a change to a second quarter profit. But what you don’t see is the people within the plants who take raw material or partly processed pieces and make a finished product.”

My confidence in the American working guy was reassured at ISA’s Sign Expo 2009, where I met small-business owner/working guy, Dustin Shelley. He’d just won the Annual Lowen Certified Wrap-Off contest grand prize — a 2009 Ford F-250 XL pickup.

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Dustin owns It’s A Wrap Graphics (Newnan, GA).

The Wrap-Off competition, produced by the Lowen Corp. (Hutchinson, KS), comprised nine, 50-minute wrap contests that occurred throughout the three-day tradeshow. Forty-eight top installers competed, Lowen said.

Dustin was awarded the America’s Best Installer title, the Ford pickup, an HP Touchsmart Notebook PC, a truck tool box, a Mac Tools wrappers tool set, the Cyrious Control OOB Gold system and a free Lowen Certification for the Installer.™

Dustin looks like a film star, and his girlfriend, Liza Auyeung, who I also met at the tradeshow, could walk the red carpet any day.

Bluemedia’s Mike Tovar took second place (a $5,000 check and a Lowen Certification for the Installer) and Laid Vision’s Rob Miller took third (a vehicle wrap designed by Brad Adamic, art director at West Coast Customs, and a Lowen Certification for the Installer). Both companies are in Phoenix.

For the event, Lowen engaged three, HP Scitex TJ8300 printers to image more than 7,000 sq. ft. of 3M vehicle-wrap material.

Sergio DeSoto, Lowen Corp.’s VP of sales and marketing, wraps and media, said Lowen plans to host the event again in 2010.

Other wrap demonstrations crowded the show floor. Roland DGA Corporation presented its partially wrapped Toyota Scion Xb, which nicely demonstrated the advantage of digital, print-and-cut systems. The floral-design motif comprised leaves and flowers over the vehicle’s white paint. Partial graphics, properly designed and applied, look great. They also allow designers to incorporate negative space.

I asked Dustin what passed through his mind during the competition. He said, “I was truly surprised about the win. I was just trying to stay focused and not be bothered with everything else that was going on … to just do my thing.” He accepted that if he wrapped like he knew he could, he’d be competitive. In short, he got to work.

Signmakers are working guys. They design, paint, weld, bend metal, stick vinyl and wrap vehicles. I’ve seen them sit on a crane-hoisted trapeze plank, 90 ft. up, to acetylene weld a steel flange and then, later, sweet talk a baby daughter resting on their lap.

The same breed will walk onto a field and build a house, or tear into a truck motor on Saturday morning and have it new by Sunday.

The writer Wywrot, a Canadian, questioned why we don’t recognize the working guys. He wrote that society “…will award the Order of Canada to the fifth oboe player in some symphony, yet we don’t seem to recognize the people who make a difference every day, the people who make our world a little better.”

I’ve had working guys drive me and a flat tire miles to town, then hang around and drive me back, not asking a dime for gas. I’ve seen them collect fistfuls of dollars to pay a buddy’s bail — and have every dime paid back. Once, during a late-night drive home, a Mexican coworker, in the dashboard lights of company truck, took a leftover cheese sandwich from his lunch sack and carefully tore it in half. Without a word, he passed one part to me. The best half sandwich ever.

I journeyed through such thoughts after ISA’s Sign Expo tradeshow. The exhibit hall featured 500 companies, staffing nearly 1,600 exhibit booths. Most manufacturers sold more than expected. The seers and prophets anticipated a lousy show, but, interestingly, more than 18,000, signmakers showed up, from 92 countries, by ISA’s count. Even better, the attendees brought money and encouraging attitudes.

I believe signmakers — working guys/small-business owners — tire of bad economic news. I think they’ve switched off the television and have swallowed the only pill they know.

To go to work.

Kristofferson’s life advice: “Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. Because, that s all that matters in the end.”