I made a trip to see my brother and his wife this past June. It was a short trip—all four siblings in my family, meaning my parents’ four children, have the same gene we inherited from our mother:
“Okay, we’ve seen it, done it, and it was great. Now let’s go home.”
I didn’t leave Central Florida until about five o’clock that afternoon because I wanted to attend my doctor’s annual crawfish boil. He went to LSU medical school, so he knows what he’s doing.
Life, after all, does have its priorities. A spot-on crawfish boil is among them, as you surely will agree.
As I was chatting with the doctor, a couple of other fellows came up to see him. They brought their homemade apple-pie hard cider as an offering. The two of them, the doctor, and the doctor’s adult nephew all had a sample, which was met with resounding huzzahs and harrumphs.
“I didn’t get a harrumph out of that guy.”
That’s from some Mel Brooks movie that Gary will have to remind me of.
I was left standing there without a taste of cider—or any acknowledgment at all. Once again, life offered me a sign that, to most people around me, I don’t matter one whit. It also reminded me that the world is full of rude, thoughtless, or rude and thoughtless people who are forever searching for some legitimacy.
Yes, you can apply that word as you wish.
A Detour Through the Okefenokee
I stopped in Brunswick for the night on the way up, but that didn’t work out. Wildfires in the Okefenokee Swamp had caused evacuations along the coast, and I had to drive almost to I-26 to find a room for the night.
This is not important to our message today. Still, it gives us an opportunity to mention the great Okefenokee—which is fun to say—and solemnly, or even slovenly, remember Pogo and his cohorts.
They were an inspiration in my younger days and helped point me toward the wise old sage I wish I were today.
When a Road Sign Doesn’t Add Up
When a Road Sign Doesn’t Add UpThe important part of this story happened on the return trip.
I was traveling south on I-95 and was about to leave South Carolina when I came across one of those portable, programmable road signs sitting in the median.
The message read:
State Line: 11 Miles , Six Minutes
Clearly, I had missed a speed-limit sign somewhere during the previous 100 miles.
Let’s see: 11 miles in six minutes. Convert the minutes, compute the speed…and that comes to 110 miles per hour.
Piece o’ cake.
I have a Hemi in this here Dodge pickup—the envy of Swamp People everywhere!
You will be glad to know I didn’t actually speed up because I soon encountered another couple of road signs:
Work Zone
and
Speeding Fines Doubled in Work Zone
Please let me know if you have recently driven more than 10 miles in any direction without coming upon road construction. I’d like to see it and perhaps commemorate it with a photo essay.
Signs Along Life’s Highway
There is no shortage of signs along life’s highway these days. I guess there hasn’t been for a long time.
Remember “Signs” by the Five Man Electrical Band from around 1970? They were a rock-and-roll group out of Ottawa, and their song was about the conservative society of the 1950s refusing to accept the long-haired counterculture of the 1970s—the durn hippies.
I guess today’s version of “Get your hair cut” is “Pull up your pants and tuck in your shirt.”
Yes, we are now the cranky old folks, stuck in our ways!
Despite the Five Man Electrical Band’s protestations, signs can be useful—particularly when they offer correct information.
“Eleven miles to go, and it will take six minutes to get there” would be an example to the contrary.
The Trouble With Timing the Stock Market
I remember a discussion in which I told a colleague that, while we couldn’t time the stock market, there were some signs along the way.
The market being at what was then an all-time high was the impetus for that discussion.
Yes, I was right about the signs being there. But I missed the rest of the signs that would have told me the market would be 40% higher two years later.
Or maybe there weren’t any signs for the mildly myopic to see.
All the stock market signs I’ve observed over the past 40 years reinforce the basics I heard long ago—but have had to test for myself in one way or another.
Investing Lessons That Stand the Test of Time
Those lessons include:
- It’s time in the market, not timing the market.
- Diversify with broad-market funds covering the basic asset classes.
- Understand risk and how you will respond to it.
- It’s not about making the most money. It’s about making the best life.
Choosing Which Signs to Follow
Choosing Which Signs to FollowSo there you go.
This was today’s reminder to read the signs—and to ignore most of them.
Most people don’t have a clue where you want to go or when you want to get there. It’s your journey and mine, not theirs.
So come on over and sit on the dock. My wife will make a peach crisp, a blueberry crisp, or both.
We’ll let the big shots drink the hard cider while we tell the old stories and laugh all over again.
Today’s Word of the Month
August 2026
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly.
There is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will enhance overall returns or outperform a non-diversified portfolio. Diversification does not protect against market risk.
