Growing up in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania we always gave a nod or a slight wave to people we passed on the roads.  We were connected; "related" given proximity and sparesness.  We were neighbors, in theory, and mostly farmers.  What we farmed or grew we sold, often on the honor system in a make-shift "stand" at the end of the driveway or lane to our home.  It was, and largely still is, an honor system; a jar of money to make change sits amongst the vegetables or flowers for sale.  There were signs, usually hand made, certainly one of a kind, announcing what "goods" were in-season, at their peak, readily available for purchase and consumption.  Sometimes there are signs for "services".  I remember going to get Lima Beans hulled with my grandmother.  My grandparents had a large garden and my grandmother had an extensive cellar and thereby the same in process of pickling, canning and jarring.  This was the way of life, consuming what the collective whole grew or raised.  There was a sense of economic equanimity in that there wasn't extravagance or vast ranges in income or wealth.  None of that was clearly defined nor articulated, but only pronounced when I would return home later in life to see a certain sense of consistency, or lack of development relative to the rest of the world.  The pace was and has always been slower, it still is, as these signs indicate.  Over a year ago I took my first picture of one of these signs, the embodiment of this area, I was struck by what they symbolize.  Signs of life, literally and figuratively.  I am frequently drawn to conflict, at times decay and aging, visual signs of life, the effects of time and seasons.  The conflict in this project is understanding my childhood and subsequent life after I left home/the farm for college, never returning to that exact address.  I have spent my childhood working on a farm at ages where I did more damage than good, too young to be paid, even as farm-help.  That work would drive my entrepreneurial spirit and passion for a small business while I worked in large Fortune 50 companies, and, of course, the largest company in the world, Walmart.  Retail is in my DNA, so is farming, baking, gardening and a Farmer's Market.  I love a small business as much as I love managing multi-billion dollar businesses.  The signs embody this area, they are filled with life, more than hope, and for me, nostalgia.  They represent at once and simultaneously, a way of life that "was", but yet still remains, so strong.  They symbolize economic balance to me, yet are wrought with a sense of concern of how long it will last.