I love a good quote — simple words that jack the part of our brain that knows a universal truth when we hear it. Many a great philosopher and cultural observer has cemented their posthumous legacy via the perfect quip. One that forever holds in its rhetorical grip the zeitgeist of a forgotten time and place. Over the years I’ve recorded the better ones in a spiral notebook that I use for inspiration or to reclaim perspective. All time favorites include the likes of Emerson, Twain, Socrates, and Longfellow (hey, my story).

So when I witnessed two elderly ladies hunched over on Perry Street with half eaten ice cream cones dripping down their arms chuckling in front of a hand magic markered seashell that read “Is it time for your medicine or mine”, I knew I had discovered, in the least, new wisdom to add to my quote journal.

The seashell quotes hang along an attractive property located on the left, going towards the ocean and about two blocks before the Mall. The shells project the tactile feel of a next day due art project that must be completed only with whatever exists in the bottom kitchen drawer. You know, where you keep the old birthday candles, extra garbage bag twisties, magic markers, twine, and those crab imperial shells you forgot you had.

I can’t quite figure out the intended goal as the quotes are not particularly clever. And for all I know whoever executed this sidewalk craft was also the author, with short handed wit that ponders “So what’s the speed of dark?” or “Can you hum and pinch your nose?”

But watching the ladies you couldn't help but share in their enjoyment and the chuckling momentum that grew as they moved down the line. Maybe they had both just taken their feel good afternoon medicine and the joke was on me. Who knows? But as they laughed so did I. As they enjoyed a light pause from their afternoon Cape May business, so did I. And as these elderly ladies moved on with a noticeable bump in step and spirit, it brought to mind words I had scribbled in my notebook years back — "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." Emerson.