If you dress up as Uncle Sam and stand on the street and wave at people, you learn who the wavers-back are. The most reliable wavers-back are, in order: Pacific Power employees, Rogue Valley Transportation District drivers, Medford cops, little kids.

Wearing an Uncle Sam suit as he stands out on South Central Avenue in Medford, Jerry Miller is filling in for Lady Liberty, who is taking care of her daughter, who is sick with the flu.

"We have wavers every day," Miller says, putting a little extra into his wave back at the driver of a passing truck who waved back at him.

Miller is among the wavers working for the Liberty Tax Service office on Central. Other wavers work at another franchise on Crater Lake Avenue.

"It’s called guerrilla marketing," Miller says. "You don’t wait for the customer to come to you. You go to him."

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Liberty was founded in 1997 in Canada by John T. Hewitt, a former H&R Block executive, moved into the United States in 1999 and now has more than 1,700 offices.

Miller is going after potential customers driving south from downtown Medford. Near the tax office is a salon, a gym, a smoke shop. Across the street is a bank, a payday loan shop, an espresso stand. Puffy white clouds drift overhead on a bright, chilly morning.

Last year was Miller’s first with the waving gig. He’d retired from the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in January 2004 and was looking for something to do part-time. He saw an ad that said, "Get paid for waving."

The pay turned out to be minimum wage. And it’s a time when the weather is iffy, especially this year (he has a big Stars-and-Stripes umbrella).

But the work isn’t bad. And most people are nice.

"I have a philosophy about work," he says. "If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it."

Some cars roar by, drivers in oblivion. People yak on cell phones. Others smile. Some wave.

Miller has his regulars, people who honk and wave every day. For them he personalizes his Uncle Sam wave, throwing in some eye contact or escalating the vigor of the basic gesture. But not if they’re hostile.

"If they give me the finger," he says, "I don’t respond."

With just a day until the tax deadline, many people are a might twitchy on the subject. "I just filed," some yell, or, "Don’t remind me."

"A little old lady stopped her car at the Trophy Club and fumbled around for something," Miller says. "Then she drove by waving a little American flag."

A bunch of high school kids had a different idea.

"Lady Liberty was out here with me," he says. "Everybody but the driver dropped his pants and mooned."

Then there are the pedestrians. A guy approaches Miller claiming that it costs the U.S. government two cents to print a piece of currency whether it’s a one or a hundred, but it’s not clear where he’s going with this.

"Ask them," he says darkly. "Ask the government."

Miller rolls his eyes. Another man told him he was going to tell his doctor at a veterans’ rehabilitation center to change his meds.

"I’m hallucinating," he said. "I keep seeing Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam."

At length Miller is joined by Lady Liberty, aka Julie Bell, of Eagle Point. Bell started as a waver last year, got some training and became a tax preparer this year. She still fills in waving.

Bell says guerrilla marketing must be working. Some people bring their taxes in and say they picked the place directly because of the wavers.

Bell thinks more men wave than women. Miller thinks probably more women wave. They compromise: It might depend on the waver.

"Mostly it’s good," Bell says. "People are pretty positive with the American symbols."

Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail bvarble@mailtribune.com