The April Fools of the US equity market in the Year of our Lord, 2025

 I don't give investment advice to friends. I don't care about the outcome enough to stay engaged, the personal payoff structure is asymmetrical. Family is different. Them, I try to keep out of the ditch, if they ask. 

The market fell off sharply as our President has become enamored with a tax called a tariff. Markets will tolerate a modest hike in taxes, but not on the scale he is proposing. 

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, badly. Never sell out of US stocks. Never. Never. Never. 

Buy when the market is rising, buy when it is falling, buy when it is flat. Never, never sell. Buy when a President is healthy, buy when one is assassinated. Buy when oil is plentiful, buy when there is a shortage. Buy when there is no cure for a terrible virus. Buy when a vaccine is developed. Buy when you love the President, buy when you don't. Buy when you're sober, buy when you're not. Buy when there is war, when there is rumor of war, when there is peace. Buy when your dog dies, when your cat dies (especially), when your Uncle Wayne dies.

Granted there are times when one should sell everything, go to cash, wait for clarity. Ask CNBC or Fox Business they see it all the time. Having been born in 1956 I have yet to see such a day. 

What so many people fail to realize is our emotions act in an opposite fashion of real things. 

When the market falls we percieve (feel) that risks are going up, we feel this is bad. In reality the risks are going down. The opposite is true when stocks are rising. 

This was true in 1929 and will still be true in 2029. True in 1974, will be true in 2074. 

In case I am all wrong. Keep a few cartons of Marlboros and some bottles of Jack Daniels in your basement. I think I have about four of each. When the social order completely breaks down, when the gas pumps are dry and the shelves are bare at Food Lion, these two things will always have value and can be exchanged for passage across the border into Canada or Mexico. 

Augusta National 2014

I had the privilege this year of attending one of the practice rounds of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National. I went with my brother and his two best friends.

I am not a golfer but I wanted to see this famous place in person, and with someone who cherishes it.

I cannot appreciate the course as a golfer would. I can only see it through the eyes of one who loves grass that feels good between the toes, well groomed shrubs, sugar white sand, pine straw. There is a perfect combination of these things here in Georgia.

It has been my honor to travel to a few places where people took special pride in appearance, an almost fanatical attention to detail. So perfect you want to test them, to see if they are still paying attention right.... now. I wanted to drop trash on the ground, though I didn't, just to see how long it would take for someone to pick it up.

I do not recall every hearing about the Masters as a child. We were not a sports family and one would never hear anyone call out "the game is on!" at our house. That would come in later years when the boys grew up and inserted sports fan-ness into the vacuum. The Masters finally got my attention when I watched Jack Nicklaus win it in 1986. Why I happened to watch it that year I do not know, but my memory of the old lion charging across the course is etched in my head, somewhere.

The first time I heard about Augusta National was when a friend of a friend was invited to play there in the mid 1980's. He spoke as though I would know how special a course it is, and I acted through the conversation with the appropriate nods and chuckles.

On this day in 2014 just about everything was perfect. Members greeted you warmly as you entered the gates, green jackets with a fit that made their tailors proud. Coffee was hot, but not too so. My cigars seemed to know where they were and the Onyx Churchills burned smoothly and evenly throughout the day.

We spent time on hole 16, Redbud. Any boy, golfer or not, would love to watch the players try and skip balls across the water hazard like skipping stone on a pond. This part of the game I understood, the clowning around, putting on a show for the folks behind the ropes.

I followed Phil Mickelson and Jason Dufner for a while, chatting about who knows what, like they were just two guys getting away from the wives and kids for a few hours. They would both miss the cut and would soon be back home cleaning gutters and bathing the dog.

The Eisenhower Tree was gone this year, which made it even better for me, because I don't like pine trees. While it is etched in the Augusta memories of all golfers, there will soon come a day when it will only be known by the stories. No one playing the course will have actually seen it. I am ahead of them, for I have no memory of it at all. But then why should I, I am not a golfer.

The day ended almost as good as it started. There was a mind numbing wait for one of our group to check out every item in the gift shop, and a long walk back to our parking lot, but those are stories for another time. This day was about two brothers who made it to an important milestone in time. We welcomed a spring together that just months ago we were not sure we would see. Husbands and wives might have better days in their own ways, but not brothers.

A Weber Grille makes a fine smoker, in a pinch

There are times when i'm away from home and wish I had my clunky old smoker with me. That's not possible but there are great ways to improvise when the real equipment isn't available. A Weber grille makes a great smoker for when your needs are small, the weather is great, and you just want an afternoon to show off your improvisational skills.

There's no real magic to this. You just put a dozen coals in one corner of the grille and light em up. Add the meat on the far side of the grille. Feed a few coals from time to time and keep the wet woodchips piled on. Turn the top vent so that it's about halfway open and on the opposite side of the coals and woodchips. That forces the smoke to travel over the meat and out the top.  Keep an eye on the temp for that magical 225 number.

We did this over two weekends at my brother's house in Charlotte. Last weekend it was a small pork shoulder and a chicken. This weekend it was two chickens and a pack of bacon. All of it came out great and my brother now thinks I'm the McGuyver of barbecue.

The bacon was a last minute thing. We bought a pack of the cheapest bacon and tossed it on for a few hours. After about three hours we started sampling and had eaten most of it by the six hour point. The chickens were smoked for about six hours. At the five hour point I stood them up on their legs to drain all the juices that had accumulated in the cavity. The little pack of tin foil that you see has the liver, gizzard, etc. They weren't that great and I wouldn't mess with them next time.

Two brothers, a makeshift smoker, perfect fall weather, cigars handcrafted by Onyx and Hoyo DeMonterey, an always-brewing pot of fresh coffee, and Cardinals baseball in the background. Top that off with a growing list of answered prayers and its hard to imagine a better weekend.

Aunts and Uncles

A few weeks ago I was asked to share a memory of my Aunt Joyce for her birthday. Below is what I wrote....

The best thing about aunts and uncles is they usually treat you like a grownup long before your parents do. They blaze the trail and send signals to the rest of the family that the kid is growing up.

In 1976 or so, when i was 19, i spent a few days with my Aunt Joyce and her family. She took me to an Amway event and other cool things, showing me a little about what her grownup life was like. I got so caught up in the excitement that i whipped out my pack of salems and had coffee and cigarettes with the Amway folk, just like i was a big kid.

Later that night she and i stayed up til around 1, talking Amway and politics and family history and college adventures, and all sorts of other things. AND! We smokedcigarettes together!!! "your mom would kill me if she knew i was letting you smoke in my house", she said. And so for a few hours it was just me and my aunt, drinkin coffee, smokin, talkin, laughin.

Whenever i think of that day it makes me want to take up cigarettes again. But obviously it is my aunt that i miss, not the habit.

Over the years i have had many wonderful times with my Aunt Joyce, but none so great as the day she walked me down the road to perdition with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Aroma

I was walking through the Minneapolis skyway the other day on my way to work and passed a Subway restaurant that had just pulled out a tray of fresh baked bread. Immediately the smell reminded me of the lunchroom at Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Florida, where the lunch ladies made fresh rolls for the kids every day. Funny how certain smells, good or bad ones, can take you back to another place. Got me to thinking about other great smells,
2. Babies
3. Newly cut grass
4. Sun tan lotion on skin at the beach
5. Cigarettes and coffee, early in the morning
6. Gasoline
7. Old Spice after shave
8. Tomato plants in the South in July
9. A baseball glove

I miss my wife, but....

My wife is gone for the week. I have the house all to myself.

I come home, run on the treadmill a while. Then I enjoy a really good cigar, in my living room, with ESPN, and a nice roaring winter fire.

I miss her, but when I have one of these, well, the absence is a bit more tolerable.

She comes back on Monday, late in the day. The trick is figuring out when is the latest I can stop smoking and have the house still smell reasonably nice. I'm thinking Saturday night, but that's cutting it close.

No matter, I earned this.

Double Happiness

One bargain I can never pass up. I don't smoke, but when the revolution comes these will be gold.

Easily exchangeable for a meal, a motel room for a night, safe passage into Canada.

$8 a carton in Seoul. Downside is my wife thinks I am a bad person for buying them. However, if she knew me like I know me she would realize this... if the Lord gave her a list of the things wrong with me, hoarding cheap cigarettes would be near the bottom of the list.

I still miss 'em

In the fall of 1968, just after I turned 12, I had my first cigarette. Behind the gym at Everitt Junior High School in Panama City Florida. Actually it was my second if you count the lit butt I found on the sidewalk outside our house in Chicago in 1962, I was six and took one puff. I guess that doesn't really count.

Anyway, the junior high event started me on this love/hate relationship with cigarettes that continued off and on through high school. In college it was more off than on as I took up running and would quit for months at a time while I took in the new passion for pounding the streets. I started again with the onset of my first real job after college, management trainee with JCPenney in Little Rock, Arkansas and continued through engagement to my wife, marriage, the birth of our first child. All of these were major life events that caused me to swear off cigarettes, but that only lasted a day or two.

October 15, 1983 was the day of the Texas/Arkansas football game. In the days of the old Southwest Conference this was one of the most important events of the year for Arkansans, whether one was a big sports fan or not. We lived in a place the locals referred to as Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a bedroom community of Little Rock. Although I grew up with my dad's affinity for Texas football it didn't run very deep and the passion of my adopted state for the Razorbacks was infectious.

On the morning of the game I thought again about the need to quit the habit and wondered how I could make it through the weekend without lighting up. I thought through the weekend as a series of time compartments. I got this sense that if I could just make it past the game I could probably make it through the whole day. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it did at the time. My oldest daughter was almost three and I asked her if she would go running with me before the game started. This would get me through the first time slot. We went outside and for about 30 minutes chased each other around a long block that circled a nearby church. The trot was enough to remind me of how much I loved running and how the tobacco was wearing on my lungs.

When we got back to our little apartment I was determined to at least make it to halftime. Made it. Third quarter, made it. Fourth quarter, game over. Razorbacks badly beaten, 30 something to 3. I had made it and on through the rest of the day. Sunday morning, once I made it past the church service, the rest of the day was not quite as hard. Monday, Tuesday, easier. That was over 25 years ago.

I still miss 'em. While giving up the habit has saved me over $66,000 (2 packs a day @ 3.50 average per pack for 26 years) there are still times when I would love to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, the newspaper, a pack of Salems, and a couple of fellow smokers. If I thought I could get away with it and not start the habit again, I would. I'm not that strong. That physical sensation that came from quenching the nicotine craving with a freshly lit cigarette was really something. Especially after a good meal. You know what I mean.

Occasionally I will pass the smokers outside my office and remember my old habit. When I quit, smoking was still common in office buildings. I never had to go outside. Never had to take a break from work to light up. I smoked on buses and on airplanes. In my house, in my car, with my little girl on my lap.

I now pass these folk as they huddle outside my office building and sometimes remember that I was one of them, though the memory is fading. When I am traveling out of the country and can pick up a carton of cheap cigarettes, I do, and then give them away. Can't pass up that bargain. In the winter I will shake my head and quickly walk by them, thinking about how weak they are, not strong like me to kick the habit. But i'm not as strong as I think. I have other habits that have taken the place of that one.

Every once in a while I will see them chatting, laughing, sharing some joke, or a problem, getting acquainted, sharing a light, cursing their habit in the bitter cold, cursing the political correctness that forces them outside, and I will envy them. I will forget all the bad things about smoking, all the money I wasted and how smokers are forced to plan their days, friends, work and life in general around the habit. I see them and ponder if I would be tough enough to be in their ranks today, especially when the temp outside is double digits below zero. I am glad that they are still there and I hope they continue to thumb their noses, or ashes, at those who force them into alleys and corridors. There are a lot of bad habits in this world that lead to a hoard of pain and suffering. Gluttony, drunkedness, greed, and the like. In the big scheme of things this one is hardly worth noticing.

Hey man, I can still slap open a zippo with the snap of my fingers and light a match with a nick of the thumbnail. I miss 'em.

A summer without Churchill

My family and friends know this image. The Onyx Churchill cigar. Linked to me and my summers for the past ten years or so. Not this year. Of the physical things that bring pleasure to life... food, clothing, and other comforts, I would put this cigar at or near the very top.

In order to get back on the non-smoker rate for my company life insurance I am enduring a year without this old friend. There is no middle ground with my company's insurance provider, Minnesota Life. You are either a smoker or you aren't. Any use of tobacco of any kind during the year and you are a smoker. A few more months to go.

I haven't been a habitual cigar smoker but have been a long standing one of some twenty years or so. I never had a problem setting it aside when the weather turned cold and it was impolite to bring the use indoors. Generally something for the summer months. A good cigar is a great pleasure and must have been what God had in mind when he invested tobacco. Not a constant habitual use, but the occasional hours long indulgence that clears the mind, brings friends together, seals important life events. Similar to how the indians used it.

Most notably this year it has been absent from my yardwork. I used to joke about how the lawnmower wouldn't start unless I had a good cigar going. It will also be absent from our family gathering in September in Tennessee. At least one neighbor has noticed and commented that it doesn't seem the same for me to be mowing the yard sans cigar. Tell me about it.

A little symbol

We spent Mothers day in Stillwater, MN, browsing the numerous shops of clothes, trinkets, books. Every visit here includes a stop at the Midtown Antique Mall, a great place to spend a few hours or a day.

I passed a collection of ashtrays and it brought back memories of when these things were commonplace in the home and office. Today they are rare and their absence is a reminder of how much personal freedom matters. I don't want or need total freedom, no one does. But I need a lot of it. Some liberties we collectively decide to give up, such as the freedom to drive a car while tipsy. Often we ask the government to enforce the things we give up for the benefit of others.

There are things that are not the business of government, such as the pay structure I have negotiated with my company, or whether I visit a doctor regularly.

Little losses of little freedoms add up and are reflected in little things, such as the ashtray that I purchased and is now in my office. I'm not a smoker. This is a reminder that I no longer have the freedom to be one.