If you’ve ever included Meyer Sign & Advertising among your social media haunts, you probably know by now that we like to spin a yarn or two. And since we’ve been doing so for a six years now, I thought it was high time that I introduce myself as the storyteller-in-chief for our website series, “Behind the Sign.”

Hi. I’m Michael Boss, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Consider this a virtual elbow bump.

I had an uncle who, as a professor, was often on the road updating his definitive college textbook on California geography. I picked up a habit of his when engaging someone in conversation, which was to ask the simple question, “So…where are you from?” For my uncle, it was a way of learning things as diverse as how this year’s almond crop was shaping up, or how rainfall patterns were affecting local ranchers. But it turns out that the question is a very non-threatening way of learning an awful lot about people besides their places of origin. My kids tease me about the habit that I acquired from Uncle Dave, but it is one that has served me well as a writer.

When asked this question myself, I always answer, “San Francisco.” It’s where I was born just six years after America won the war against the Axis. But I’m from a few other places as well — a list that includes other towns in the Golden State (San Jose and Stockton), Iran (Tehran and Esfahan), and Portland, Oregon. The longest my wife (who is a military brat) and I have lived in any one place has been our 18 years in Boise, Idaho — the beautiful “City of Trees” in the high desert of the Snake River plain.

While I left my childhood in San Francisco (a place of great magic), it would be truer to say that I left my heart in Boise. We would still be living just a short walk from the banks of the Boise River were it not for two reasons. One of them is named Owen (age 8), and the other is named Ezra (age 6). They are our grandsons, and they live with our youngest child and her husband in picturesque Bay View, WA. We moved to Mount Vernon in 2013 because we believed, and still do, that life is simply too short to not be a part of your grandchildren’s lives if you can possibly arrange it. And let’s be honest: you can do a lot worse than call the Skagit Valley home, however you ended up here. 

So, how did I get hooked up with a sign company as old as I am? Let me tell you about that, too.

I was introduced to Meyer Sign & Advertising through a brief gig with Skagit Publishing back in 2014. Martin and Toni Boer were the owners at the time, having taken over the business from the company’s founder (and Toni’s dad), John Meyer. Skagit Publishing had helped Meyer Sign get its website off the ground and needed someone to develop content to keep it relevant in search engine terms (what is known as SEO — “search engine optimization”). The very first story I published on the company’s website was a one about its building’s origins as the Chevron exhibit at the Seattle World’s Fair. For a person like me who geeks out on quirky local histories, my association with Meyer Sign was something akin to “love at first sight,” and the feeling was happily mutual. Some things just work out like that.

As time went by, the stories continued, and my relationship with Meyer Sign grew closer. I eventually became an honest-to-goodness employee (technically part time, but I still get a W2 every year). I honchoed the redesign of the company’s website, took over the management of its social media platform, and directed its “content strategy” (as we in the marketing biz like to say) toward a focus on stories about our customers, and even more important, about the place that we live.

If it seems odd that a sign company would stake its online identity on talking about where it resides, let me reveal the method behind our madness. It’s really as simple as this: we want our brand to be associated with the best of what you, our audience, associate with life in the Magic Skagit. In taking this approach, we humbly recognize that achieving this goal is not something we can buy through Facebook advertising. It has to be earned.

Toward this end, I look for stories that illustrate the people, places, and things that put the “magic” in Magic Skagit. It might be the history of a local state park, or the significance of a majestic tree in downtown Mount Vernon, or the reflections of a YMCA director during a time of pandemic, or the driftwood sculptures of fantastic beasts crafted by an artist in Bow, or what it’s like to drive along Chuckanut Road. If it’s local and can put a smile on your face, touch your heart, or make you ponder, I’m down with it. My goal is to simply do a good story justice, and let our readers decide if I’ve succeeded.

So, now that I’ve told you where I’m from and what I’m doing here, I’d like to ask you a favor. Follow us on Facebook and read our stories. Even more important, share your thoughts and reminiscences about them if they touch you personally — like the reader of a recent story about Hillcrest Lodge who shared her memory of being married there. We’d also love to hear your story ideas and add them to the ever lengthening list of the those we have already — and believe me, it’s a very long list!. 

We’re looking forward to keeping this conversation going for as long as there are stories to tell…and there are always more stories to tell. Thanks so much for letting us share them with you, and for being willing to listen. And by the way, if you ever need a sign, did I mention that Meyer Sign & Advertising makes really awesome ones?