Thankful Thanksgiving
November 23, 2015
The past two weeks I enjoyed some good old fashioned southern road trips, as I visited clients and looked at some investment opportunities during travels across a five state region. During the lead up to Thanksgiving I want to share with my readers some observations from the road about the things for which I am grateful.
How wonderful it is to live in a region where there are roads named Old Watermelon Road, New Watermelon Road, and Buttermilk Road. Thank you, Tuscaloosa, which was also the site of one of my few desperately needed Starbucks breaks. A latte, with an extra three shots of espresso, always works to keep me alert for the last leg home to Atlanta. It would also appear that at 2:30 pm every female student attending the University of Alabama is also in Starbucks. Of the fourteen people in line, I was the only male. From an investment observation every single woman in that line was paying with their Apple phone. Take note world, the way the next generation pays for stuff is changing.
The market in the week before Thanksgiving continued to grind higher and I am thankful that for the start of the Thanksgiving week investors should be feeling a sense of a rising net worth.
One surprising road observation was finding a gas station that had a sign for regular unleaded at $1.59 per gallon. After filling up with cheap gas, I met someone who fits my description of a risk taker. He is a young man who has just moved in next door to my Mother, and he is a true entrepreneur. Now in the rural South an entrepreneur is not the same as the slick folks found in Silicon Valley. No, this young man has seen an opportunity and has risked his capital to start a repair shop to fix ATVs (all terrain vehicles). For folks in the country the ATV has replaced the truck, tractor, horse and mule as the must have thing to get around in the woods, or just about anywhere on your property. My mother’s neighbor had been frustrated finding a service shop to keep his own ATVs in working order, and so he started the only repair shop in a 30-mile radius to fix these things. I asked how business was doing, and he said “huge, I need to hire two more workers”. As I’ve learned from so many clients, wealth is generated in many different ways. This is the true American business story. More wealth and jobs in America are created by people like this young man than by anything done in Silicon valley.
I am thankful for my strong willed Mother who fights daily to stay independent in her own home, and for the rest of my family who somehow have all figured out a way to come home for this special week. I know that there will be times they will not be able to make it home for the holidays so I must remember to enjoy these times as much as I can. Lastly, I am thankful to all my readers and clients that have taught me so much. Your kind words of encouragement and appreciation make it easier when the words and ideas for this little piece are sometimes difficult to find.
Carl Gambrell
