I began my professional art career at the tender age of fourteen, painting seasonal window splashes for local merchants in town. The very first window was a small one and I was paid a whopping ten dollars for my effort. It was a lot of money for a fourteen year old kid back then. The minimum wage was one dollar and the window was painted in about that amount of time. I continued painting seasonal windows into my mid-twenties. Even back then I did my best to balance work and my home life. Janis often helped me, starting when we were first dating and this continued, even after we started our family. I remember one massive window painting we did for a large auto dealer. The manager was a little indignant that I had brought my family but we pressed on. I did the layout and then painted the black outline. Janis with baby Becke tucked in a snuggly would follow, filling in the colours. Peter, although he was only two years old (almost three) wanted to help of course. The window design had figures and so I mixed up some black paint and instructed Peter to colour the shoes of the figures which were near the bottom of the window. A little later as we diligently worked there was a commotion at the other end of the showroom. The manager had noticed that Peter had painted the cartoon figure’s shoes down to the bottom of the window, over the window sill, down the wall and onto the carpeted floor. Peter thought his joke of the man with HUGE feet was hilarious. I did my best not to laugh but the manager didn’t see the humour in the slightest. He came to me and started in on a lecture about professionalism and keeping family and business separate. Janis worked quietly and diligently to clean up Peter’s extra water based paint. I had the manager almost calmed down but right about then our little puppy did some nasty business on the carpet.