In the beginning there was the first Blog, and this is it. My first Blog entry. My name is Russ and I am the Grumpy Guy from Grumpy Guy Pens. I’m not really a grumpy guy my wife came up with the name.
I had been making and selling all kinds of stuff I had made with my lathe, including pens, for about ten years. It had always been just a word-of-mouth type thing just selling things occasionally. Then COVID hit and sales stopped, but I kept making stuff. So one day I was browsing on the internet and came across a website selling handmade pens and I thought, “I can do that”.
A little background about where I live in North West Arkansas. The area where I live people still greet each other as they walk past. It’s usually a “Good morning or afternoon, how are you?”. It’s just a polite platitude really, people aren’t expecting a real genuine response to it. Well one day I came up with a response that most folks don’t expect. When they say “Good morning how are you?” my response is “Old and grumpy, how are you?” For the most part people will stop and chuckle a bit then move on. Some will stop and reply in some way like, “you and me both”, or “I’m with ya brother.” People, usually, pause and respond and that was my goal.
So fast forward back to my idea of opening a website. At one point I was racking my brain for a catchy name for my on-line pen store I was telling my wife some of the names I came up with, hoping to get some feedback. She said why don’t you just call it Grumpy Guy Pens? And so Grumpy Guy Pens was born.