At 77, Floyd Head can't wait to get to work in the morning.
His business card reads: "If you needed flags yesterday, you will only be one day late. And that's your fault."
Five-foot-3 and full of energy, he ascribes his ruddy health and high spirits to a handful of raisins a day, a tonic prescribed in childhood by the family doctor.
His business, Head's Flags, at 3815 Henderson Blvd., stocks thousands of flags, flagpoles, bunting swags, decorative flags, wind socks, sports flags, patriotic stickers by the truckload. Big flags hang like curtains in neat rows. Some are rolled in tubes. Thousands of tiny, colorful flags line the interior of the shop as if awaiting a cheering crowd and parade.
He rents flags, repairs flags and sometimes marvels over them.
He collects weather-tattered flags that he sends to American Legion Post 138 for proper disposal.
"People even mail their old ones to me," he said.
When small children arrive with parents, Head gives them miniature flags and treats them to a show of a fist-sized, flag-waving unicyclist riding across the store on a string of monofilament line.
The enterprising son of a boxmaker and a cigar factory worker, Head grew up in Palmetto Beach, where, in 1940 at 13, he opened a soda stand, "Floyd's Place," across from DeSoto Park.
When he married his wife Lydia at 18, the two moved to Ohio, where he ran a small dairy operation and worked in the insurance business. The couple, who lives in South Tampa, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in December.
He knows just about everyone in town, a statement quantified by the stream of old men who file into his shop on an ordinary morning browsing the merchandise or needing flags to be mended.
Head carries flags from every corner of the earth, just ask: Macedonia, Nepal, Luxembourg, Italy, Morocco.
"We've even got Tahiti and Montserrat," he said.
Churches and schools are big customers. So are MacDill Air Force Base and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Many homeowners shop at Head's store, particularly during high flag-waving season: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Fourth of July.
Sports fans needing to assert allegiance find their way here, too, drawn to the serious collection of team flags, from Bolts to Bucs to Gators.
Head also offers various maxims, that can be boiled down to one simple directive: Drag your rear end out of bed early, greet the day with a good attitude and show some initiative.
That's his favorite word, "initiative."
He repeats it over and over, more like a pledge than a prayer, so he won't ever forget. He keeps the word taped to the cash register.
Say it enough and you'll have initiative, too.
Here's how it works: The flag business is a retirement folly that bloomed from a box of American flags he bought more than two decades ago for $5 at a downtown auction. He promptly carted the box to a flea market and sold each flag for $5, making himself "a bundle." After a storefront in Ybor City, he sold from several more locations and eventually moved to his current shop, which he runs with his 32-year-old grandson, Tony Clayton.
Portraits of family hang on the walls - he has 16 grandchildren and a dozen great-grandchildren - as do framed letters from military generals thanking him for their flags.
He has a comfortable baby-blue sofa for weary clients and a refrigerator full of free soda for the delivery people who stream through his doors each day.
Head believes this about life, family and home: "You can live in the worst location in the world, the worst climate - Siberia for that matter," he said. "But if you're happy with the people you live and work with, then it's paradise."
