I am not an entrepreneur. I have been happy in my life to work for a church and be paid a salary for my services. Sometimes I have had other jobs on the side, including driving a school bus, working as a radio announcer, and free-lance writing and editing. But I’m not one to start my own business. However, I sometimes have conversations with family members about what I see as good business opportunities. “If I were going to start a business,” I’ll say, “I’d do this or that.”

So here is one of my ideas for a new business. It has a relatively low capital investment and as far as I can see, no lack of customers. Here is how it would work:

To start out what you need is a selection of screwdrivers and a few wrenches. Most importantly you need a multi-meter and access to simple car parts such as bulbs, flashers, wires, etc. It would be good to have a small space, perhaps a single car garage, to work. It wouldn’t hurt for that to be near an auto parts store so you could get just what you needed when you needed.

Then you put up a sign, advertise by word of mouth, on the internet, and whatever other way you can discover. Your business? The blinker fixer.

I’m pretty sure that you’d have lots of business because whenever we drive around here we are bound to see cars with blinkers that don’t work. At leas that’s what I’m thinking. There can’t possibly be that many drivers who simply don’t use their turn signals, could there?

Most of the repairs would be simply replacing bulbs. Occasionally there might be a flasher that needs to be replaced. Sometimes, especially on vehicles pulling trailers, you'd have to check out a ground wire or make sure that there isn’t a short. It really isn’t that difficult to diagnose and repair problems with vehicle and trailer lighting. It just takes time and if you charged by the hour, taking time wouldn’t be a problem.

You could charge extra to repair turn signals that won’t turn off.

I suppose there is a problem with this business. Otherwise someone would already have done it. But it seems like a good idea.

If that doesn’t work out, no worries. I’ve got other ideas.

I sometimes tell people that I earned the right to tell North Dakota jokes by living in North Dakota for seven winters. I grew up in Montana and went to graduate school in Chicago, so there was nothing particularly new to me about North Dakota winters. Sure, it got cold. And sometimes there were snow storms that were so severe you wanted to be safely at home and not out on the roads. But we didn’t suffer much during our time in North Dakota. Those years, however, were followed by a decade of living in Boise, Idaho, which is a place of pretty mild weather. Most days are sunny, with very little precipitation. It does snow in the winter from time to time, but not that much. The city uses its street sweepers between snow storms to pick up the sand they had scattered on the roads during the last snow storm to reuse on the next snow storm. The place has the tiniest thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced. A few puffs of wind and a couple of crackles of thunder and it is all over. I was almost relieved when we moved from Idaho to South Dakota which has a healthy mix of weather. There are a few good blizzards every year and it can get hot in the summer, but it isn’t a bad place to live weather wise.

Now, however, I fear we once again have moved to a place with wimpy storms. Last winter there were several snow days when they cancelled school. A snow day around here means that it is cold enough for the snow to stick to the ground, not that there is a raging blizzard. Of course the locals don’t know how to drive on slippery roads and head for the ditches left and right each time it snows a bit. And a lot of people don’t own snow shovels. I’d go out and shovel my driveway - a job that takes about 15 minutes compared to hours spent shoveling snow when we lived in the Dakotas. I never saw any of my neighbors shovel their driveways. That seems to be an unnecessary chore in a place where the snow will melt within 48 hours anyway. During those 48 hours people claim to be snowed in.

There is another business venture for you. Start a winter driving school out here. You could set up a test track and allow people to learn how to steer into a skid. You could demonstrate how it takes more room to stop when the road is slippery and leaving extra space is a good idea. You could demonstrate the use of a snow brush and ice scraper, which are tools that the locals around here have never seen. On snow days when all the schools are closed you can sell snow shovels door to door or start a snow shoveling service.

A week or so ago, there was a tiny thundershower that blew over the place. I heard two claps of thunder and didn't see any lightning. It rained a few drops, but nothing like a typical rain shower around here. The kids ran outside to see what was going on. It reminded me of the kids in Boise, who had never seen a real thunderstorm. And despite the fact that local people occasionally call a few ice crystals in the winter “hail,” these people don’t know what a real hailstorm is like.

There is another possible business. You could arrange tours of places where real weather occurs for those who live in places where the weather is so mild they have never experienced real storms.

I’m full of ideas.