CALCIUM — Two brothers are continuing a nearly 60-year tradition of placing quotes on a well-known sign along Route 11. While their direction with it has been slightly more edgy, they just hope people can appreciate their fair, if not sobering, observations on anything that might make you laugh, think or stir.
Andrew P. Lake, 21, and Brian E. Lake, 23, know some might not like the sign. They know some might get offended by it, but their intention is not to provoke. Reactions to it have been overwhelmingly positive.
The idea has always been to find quotes that can make anyone laugh or think, no matter what they believe in.
“Trust but verify,” “Stand for something or fall for anything” and “A fat girl is like a bass fiddle without a bow” — all quotes that have been placed on the large, cement-reinforced sign outside the Lake’s Home Center mobile home park in black plastic letters that the owners don’t think are even available to replace anymore.
The sign began in 1962 with their grandfather, Robert E. Lake. He has owned the park for years and built that sign at first to, of course, advertise new listings. It slowly transformed into a blank canvass for quotes that Mr. Lake enjoyed. It was in part the non-editorializing way to market his business. Instead of advertising an open unit, he would place a quote like, “Every day is a gift. It’s up to you if you want to untie the ribbon.”
It of course wasn’t all self-serving, or even a portion of it. He wanted people to enjoy whatever was up there. The sign was for everyone, and if a few people later stopped in looking for a place to live and said they loved the sign, that’s a bonus. He got his quotes from newspaper articles, catalogs or joke books. They came from anywhere, and most of them were meant to be funny.
Brothers Andrew P. Lake, left, and Brian E. Lake, far right, stand with their grandfather, Robert E. Lake, in front of the Lake’s Home Center consistently clever marquee on Route 11 in Calcium. The business has been in their family for decades. Kara Dry/Watertown Daily Times
Just like the quote, “A fat girl is like a bass fiddle without a bow.” He put that on the sign a couple years ago, and they’re still laughing about it. That’s all it was ever meant to be — a joke. People still called their office off the hook complaining about it. Social media had a frenzy. The two grandsons call it “That One Joke,” knowing it was fair if some were offended, but they really just think it was a light-hearted and old-time joke that wasn’t meant to hurt anyone.
“Everyone was freaking out about it, and we were like ‘Who cares?’” Andrew said. “Let them get offended by it. It’s just a joke.”
Andrew says that because those type of jokes are rarely on the sign. He has always been most attracted to the quotes that make you think, and he remembers the day he learned most about what the sign was all about.
He was driving home one day and saw that quote his grandfather had placed up there: “Every day is a gift. It’s up to you if you want to untie the ribbon.” He was growing up at the time and in a weird point in his life, and it was like he needed to read that. He remembers pulling off and going directly to has grandpa’s house.
“I told him, ‘Grandpa, you put that on the sign for me,’” Andrew said. “‘How did you know?’”
His grandpa, not responding too much, just showed him the filing drawer full of the article clippings, books and magazines where he has gotten so many quotes over the years. But then Andrew, going through it, noticed there were tallies next to some quotes, indicating his grandpa had kept track of how many times quotes re-appeared on the sign. His grandpa told Andrew a story of a man who did the same thing he did: Storming into his house and asking how Mr. Lake knew he needed to hear that.
It’s unclear if Mr. Lake had used the ribbon quote on multiple occasions, but those tallies suggested to Andrew that his grandpa has used the same quote multiple times because he knows there might be someone out there who needs to hear it.
“To him, he just put it up there because he thought it was good,” Andrew said. “But to me, it meant everything in the world at the time.”
It was roughly five years ago when the two brothers began placing quotes on the sign. They have focused a little more on political satire, but the common ground is that they want both sides to relate to their quotes, and they don’t single anyone out — unless it’s Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Brian E. Lake is responsible for this recent quote. “That’s probably the farthest I’ve gone,” he said. “But, Cuomo is screwing everybody over. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democratic business owner or a Republican business owner.” Sydney Schaefer/Watertown Daily Times
Brian, who is technically the office manager but — with any family business — he does just about anything, put the quote, “What God gives, Cuomo takes away” on the sign last week.
“That’s probably the farthest I’ve gone,” Brian said. “But, Cuomo is screwing everybody over. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democratic business owner or a Republican business owner.”
Brian likes to choose a historical figure he’s interested in, from former President Ronald Reagan and writer Mark Twain, to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill.
“Trust but verify,” a recent quote on the sign, is attributed to Mr. Reagan.
“Some people drive by and think, ‘Oh that’s stupid,’” he said. “Others drive by and think that means a lot to them.”
For Andrew, most of the quotes he uses come from either song lyrics or something he likes. “Stand for something or fall for anything” really isn’t a controversial statement or partisan, meaning he hopes whoever reads it can feel the same way, no matter if they have the same beliefs or not.
“For example if they supported (President-elect Joe) Biden, that’s fine,” Andrew said. “If you’re strong enough in your support for Biden, and you truly believe he’s the right pick and you’ve done your due diligence, and that’s the stand you want to take, good for you. But the point was to make a stance.”
They really like to bash any form of big government. One popular quote Brian recently put up was, “Your government tends not to solve problems only rearrange them,” was also meant to be a fair if not common ground idea.
“As soon as they see anything that makes us look anti-government, they assume we’re just right-wing extremists, I guess,” Andrew said. “That’s not the case at all. It’s any big government.”
The two brothers change the sign almost every two weeks, depending on how well the quotes are received. They measure that by calls and people stopping in to compliment it. It’s still their main source of advertising. They’ve been offered to start digital marketing campaigns,
“Our website is a little out of date,” Brian said. “That’s a choice. We’re centrally located and we have a big sign, and that’s all you need.”
They rarely if ever do advertising deals with other businesses on the sign either, despite many requests and good offers. They just recently put up an endorsement for a local candidate this year.
Robert E. Lake arranges letters while laying out “I wish I was as wonderful as my dog thinks I am” on the business sign on Route 11 in Calcium in 2008. Watertown Daily Times
“That was a tough decision,” Brian said. “I didn’t really want to do that at first. But he’s a friend of ours and I like it, so we put it up. But generally speaking, we don’t do that.”
Indeed the sign is for poking fun at political candidates, not boosting them, they said.
“I don’t care who you stand for, red or blue, we’re not going to endorse you,” Brian said, “We’ll knock you down, but we won’t endorse you.”
But above all, the sign is for the community and by the community. Its simplicity and honesty are traits that led to it tapping into the people driving by.
“It’s us on the other side doing it,” Andrew said. “It’s a local community member doing it, and we do it for the community.”
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