Yard Cards of St. Charles

I worked full time at McDonnell Douglas/Boeing for 33 years and for the most part it was satisfying but it didn’t fulfill the entrepreneurial side of my life.  Early in our marriage Mimi (wife) stumbled on to our 1^st part time business while reading the newspaper.  She found a business (franchise) opportunity to deliver 8 foot tall greeting cards (Yard Cards) in the St. Charles area.  The franchise was reasonably priced and we thought it would be fun without an extreme amount of effort.   Mimi’s parents had a part time paper business delivering the Globe Democrat, which seemed way more time consuming it would be to deliver Yard Cards. (YC)  So we bought our 1^st business and it was fun because who wouldn’t be happy having an 8 foot tall birthday card placed in their front yard in the middle of the night.  We delivered the cards late at night so they would be surprised in the morning.  The cards were used over and over again plus we charged for the lettering so it was low overhead.

The concept was pretty simple we would receive a call to deliver a card for any specific occasion, which we would deliver on the requested date and then pick up a day later.  Sometimes the customer wanted extra days which was usually no problem.  Each sign/card would be hand lettered with a message from the customer.  We owned this business for about 9 years and in that time we learned the streets of St. Charles very well.  I owned a small truck so it would be easy to transport the YCards but Mimi had a station wagon (older version SUV), which worked but was more difficult to load and unload plus the card turned into a guillotine if you made a quick stop, but we managed.  Most people loved to get these gigantic greeting cards but we did run into a few people that were not at all happy about the gift.

Interesting side story is that in addition to answering calls all day for our business Mimi would babysit for our nephew Kevin (both parents worked during the day) plus our kids were in school.  Since she was home taking care of our business babysitting Kevin was not a problem.  This was in the days before caller ID so we assumed every call was a business call and answered by saying “Yard Cards”.  One evening after my brother-in-law (Tom) picked up Kevin he called to tell us Kevin said his 1^st words which is always a thrill for new parents (we all know that toddlers are mimics that do and say whatever the see and hear), That’s great, well tell us did he say Mama or Dada, neither Tom exclaimed he said “Yard Cards”.  Great, you should be so proud.

Back to the main story, it was beyond our imagination to believe some orders received would be celebrating, divorces, get out of jail parties and even a Yard Card with a marriage proposal.  I was once even met by a guy with a shotgun while setting up a YC.  He was joking, thankfully and the shotgun was broke open without any shells loaded but it was not all that humorous from my viewpoint.

The most interesting story by far was the guy that ordered 3 YC’s for this girl, which were to be delivered in succession.  The 1^st one exclaimed his love for her, the 2^nd asked her to go with him on a Caribbean trip and the 3^rd was a marriage proposal.  This was a great gig for me I would take one down and set the next one up in the same spot.  The girl however was not impressed and called when she receive the 3^rd and final one to ask if we had any more coming because she had kicked this one down and did not want anymore delivered.  She explained clearly that she did not like this guy and wanted nothing to do with him.  I said there were no more cards ordered and I would come over immediately to remove the last one from her lawn.  So I immediately headed out to pick up the card and as I turned the corner to approach the house I saw 2 people in different cars side by side arguing at the stop sign, one was a girl and the other a guy.  Since the house was just a short distance down the street I was able to continue watching as I removed the YC from the lawn.  As I watched I could see the argument getting more heated, seeing arms flaying, fingers pointing etc.  Just as I was about finished I see the girl’s car take a quick right turn from the stop sign then immediately after I seen the guy’s car turn right as well.  It just so happens that was the direction I needed to go so I made a point to keep a lookout for these 2 cars.  Well as you can probably guess about 2 blocks down the road I saw the guy’s car pulled over to the side of the road by a police cruiser.  The girl’s car was nowhere in sight.

I didn’t get any more orders for that address, no surprise. In this case a gift of an 8 foot tall Yard Card was not welcomed surprise.