October 17th, 2026

 
    I have an uncle who is one of the smartest men I have ever known. A brilliant mind, a thoughtful husband, a father, a grandfather, and a man who has spent the last several years sitting in a nursing home while the world he once knew continues turning without him.
    That brilliant mind is still there somewhere, but the memories that filled it have slowly slipped away.
     My aunt visits him every day. After more than fifty years of marriage, she is still showing up for the man she promised to love through better or worse.
  Life has been better, but now the days are worse, and she should not be eating lunch with him in a nursing home cafeteria. She should be sitting on the patio with him on a beautiful morning, sharing coffee and a cinnamon roll. She should be enjoying a martini beside him while watching the evening news. She should be reminding him to brush his teeth before climbing into bed.
    Those are the little things that make a marriage. The ordinary moments that become extraordinary only after they are gone.
     My cousin should be able to call her dad and tell him about his granddaughter. They should be sitting together in a gymnasium, watching the next generation of the family knock down three-pointers. He should be cheering, offering advice nobody else can give, and bragging about a young lady who carries a little piece of him into the future.
     Instead, they are left carrying memories he can no longer share.
    I am not sure why today's Chalkboard quote immediately made me think of my uncle.
           "Happiness is the ability to forget."
   At first glance, that seems like a strange philosophy. We spend our lives gathering memories, collecting experiences, and hanging on to the moments that give our life meaning. Why would forgetting any of them make us happier?
    Perhaps because there is a world of difference between forgetting what hurts us and forgetting what makes us who we are.
    The human mind is our personal historian, but a lousy judge of what belongs in the archives. It remembers insults longer than compliments, failures more than triumphs, and those embarrassing moments that everyone else forgot twenty years ago.
    We carry around grudges, disappointments, and old arguments like they are valuable treasures. Every once in a while, we dust them off  and allow them to ruin another perfectly good Saturday morning.
      What a shitty waste of happiness.
    My uncle didn't choose to forget. Nobody would willingly trade fifty years of love, laughter, family dinners, Christmas mornings, and a magnificent nephew for an empty page.
       …And yet, those of us fortunate enough to remember everything often choose to fill our pages with things that make us miserable.
     There has to be a cruel irony in all of that.
    Maybe happiness isn't really the ability to forget. Maybe it is the wisdom to know what deserves remembering.
    Forget the damn insults and the useless grudges. Forget the bastard who cut you off in traffic. Forget the argument you won twenty years ago that nobody gives a shit about anymore.
      …But remember the cinnamon rolls. Remember the martinis during the evening news. Remember the laughter around the dinner table and the sound of a basketball bouncing across a gymnasium floor.
    Remember the people who loved you, especially when remembering becomes something they can no longer do for themselves.
    My auntie remembers enough for both of them now, and perhaps that is the most beautiful, heartbreaking definition of love I can imagine.
   As for the rest of you Chalkheads, there is a smiling sun on today's board. Take a moment to stand beneath it and measure the length of your shadow. The longer that shadow stretches, the more yesterdays we have been fortunate enough to collect.
    Some of those yesterdays will hurt and others will make us smile.
We don't get to choose how long our shadows grow, but while the sun is shining, we can choose what we carry with us.
Never forget where the sun is in your life and never forget the people who helped make it shine.
    Have a fanfuckingtastic Saturday,  you gorgeous Chalkheads.

October 16th, 2026

 
     Happy Friday!
   The weekend is knocking, autumn is settling in, and my favorite holiday is finally making its appearance on the horizon. Thanksgiving is just 41 days away! Forty-one days until turkey, stuffing, family, football, and the wonderful excuse to loosen your belt without giving two squirts.
    The weather is playing its usual October tricks. A little rain, a few clouds, and the sun peeking around the corner. Let us cherish those brief moments of sunshine. Before long, Old Man Winter will be kicking down the door, and we will be begging that smiling sun to come back.
       Today's Chalkboard offers a little wisdom worth pondering.
         "We suffer more in imagination than in reality."  Seneca
  The ancient Stoic philosopher understood something about the human mind that remains true two thousand years later. Our imagination is a gorgeous gift, capable of creating dreams, inventions, and endless possibilities.
    Unfortunately, that same imagination can construct suffering from events that couldn’t happen and probably never happen.
    Fear borrows trouble from tomorrow and demands payment today.
 The mind rehearses disasters, invents conversations, anticipates disappointments, and constructs entire tragedies. Reality, meanwhile, patiently waits for its turn.
     Seneca was not suggesting that suffering is imaginary or that life's hardships are not real. He was reminding us that anticipation often adds a bullshit burden to whatever difficulties eventually do arrive.
    There is a difference between preparing for tomorrow and being frightened by a tomorrow that exists only between our ears.
      Perhaps wisdom is learning to recognize that difference.
 The clouds may be gathering, but that doesn't mean a storm is coming, and sometimes, just around the corner, the sun is smiling.
     Enjoy your Friday. Do not borrow tomorrow's troubles when there is still sunshine, shadows and gusto to find!

October 15th, 2026

     Thursday brings us a rainy day and another reminder that autumn has officially settled in. We may have seen the last of eighty-degree weather until next spring. Time to put the shorts away and find out if the furnace still works.
    Today is National Cheese Curd Day, not to be confused with Cheez Whiz and that great line from The Blues Brothers, “Ya got my Cheez Whiz, boy?”
    All this talk about cheese has me craving a bowl of Wisconsin beer cheese soup from Goldyburgers.
    Years ago, while having lunch at Goldyburgers, my dad shared one of his great pearls of wisdom.
    “Moose, you can tell a good joint by the effort they put into their soup. Good soup, good joint. Horseshit soup, never return!”
   My Oldman wasn't a restaurant critic. He didn't need five stars, a glowing newspaper review, or some jagoff restaurant critic on channel two telling him where to eat.
        All he needed was a spoon and a bowl of soup.
   His philosophy was simple. If a kitchen cared enough to make a good pot of soup, chances were they gave a damn about everything else coming out of it.   
         …And if they couldn't get the soup right, why the hell would you trust them with a cheeseburger or a turkey club?
    There is probably a bigger lesson in there about life, pride, and putting effort into the little things.
        Or maybe my Oldman just really liked a good bowl of soup.
   Either way, all these years later, I can still hear him saying it.
         “Good soup, good joint. Horseshit soup, never return!”
     Not bad advice from the Oldman.
  …And certainly worth remembering the next time somebody puts a bowl of horseshit in front of you.
          Have a great Thursday!

October 14th, 2026

 

     I woke up this morning feeling sorry for myself.

    No dramatic event, no fresh catastrophe. I just opened my eyes, felt tired before my feet hit the floor, and realized I couldn’t name one thing coming up in the near future that had me excited. I have nothing to circle on the calendar to count the days until.

     I could tell you everything I have to do, but I can’t tell you what I am looking forward to.

     That is a shitty way to start a Wednesday.

      I get up, I go to work, I finish work and hurry home.

    I love my children, but I also get tired. Those two facts live in the same house.

    Parenting an autistic adult has brought challenges I didn’t understand when George was little. Being his father means I’m still learning, still worrying, and sometimes running short on patience.

    With Fritz, I am trying to help him find his way into college, find his voice, find some confidence in his own footing.

   With Hazel, I worry about how small her world has become and how to help her feel comfortable stepping into a bigger one.

     Three children, three different roads and their Oldman is standing at the intersection, trying to direct traffic.

       Somewhere in all that directing, I have lost track of where I would like to go.

    I went to a wedding this past weekend and saw old friends. I had been looking forward to it for weeks. There was something wonderful about having a date on the calendar that meant laughter, familiar faces, and a few hours when nobody needed me to solve anything.

      Then it was over.

       Now what?

        That question followed me into the kitchen this morning.

   I know people are carrying heavier loads. People are sick. People are out of work. People are grieving someone whose chair will be empty this Thanksgiving.

    But I don’t think we have to hold a pity party before admitting we are worn out. Somebody else’s trouble does not make mine disappear, but it ought to make us a little more patient with each other.

          “Everyone is fighting a battle,” says today’s Chalkboard.

  Some battles are easy to see. Others look like a man going to work, making a joke, answering the phone, and doing what he has always done. You would never know he spent the morning wondering when he gets to have something to look forward to.

    So, pray for each other and check on each other. Call the friend you keep meaning to call. Sometimes an invitation means more than the person extending it realizes.

    I don’t have a grand revelation this morning. My coffee didn’t give me enlightenment.

     I need a date on the calendar to look forward to. I can’t keep waiting for every worry to settle down before I make room for a happy occasion.

   With three kids and a working life, I might be waiting until the priest is telling me that it is last call.

    This morning, I am tired, I am worried and I am feeling fucking sorry for myself, but I will still answer the bell. 

    The Latin in the grabber section means to pray urgently. Pray for the Pope. Pray for each other and remember we all have some sort of shitshow behind the scene.

October 13th, 2026

 

    I took Fritz to a college open house on Monday. We went to learn about his future. There was also room on the schedule for an examination of his Oldman.

    The first thing that hit me was the diversity. What stood out most were the young women wearing islamic headscarves, hanging out together. They looked young and happy.

         Fritz caught me looking.

      “What are you thinking dad?”

 “These girls are here getting an education,” I told him. “They can’t do that in the shitholes they come from.”

     The young Shepley didn’t appreciate his Oldman’s frankness. He told me I was wrong.

    So, I pointed toward the purple-haired girls and the theater boys prancing through the quad.

    “Not only would those girls get stoned for trying to learn in mooslim countries, those wackos over there and that kid heading into the lecture hall could get thrown off a building for being who they are.”

    That earned me the announcement that my generation is closed-minded.

We hadn’t even gotten to financial aid, and Dad was already on academic probation.

     As we headed to the next event, a Jewish man in his mid-thirties came walking toward us. Amid the Free palestine shirts and islamic headscarves, his traditional Jewish clothing caught my eye.

    He looked at me. I smiled.

     “Shalom,” he said.

      “Shalom,” I answered.

   He had gone about three steps past us when he turned back.

        “Are you Jewish?”

  “No,” I said. “But I’m your friend.”

        He thanked me and continued on.

  Fritz looked at me again. His Oldman was turning out to be a more complicated elective than he had anticipated.

            “Why did you tell him we were his friend?”

   “Because that man would give us bread if we were hungry, water if we were thirsty, and protect us if somebody was hurting us,” I told him. “And we ought to be willing to do the same for him.”

     That was what I believed when I looked at him. A stranger, sure, but a brother, too.

   We went into our next presentation and turned our attention to the business of college: computers, engineering, tuition, and how many internal organs Dad might need to sell to pay for it.

    When we came out, our Jewish friend was standing in the hall. It looked like he was there to help prospective students learn about Jewish life at the university.

     He recognized us.

         “Are you interested in Jewish life here?”

  “My son might be if he comes next fall,” I said. “We are Catlicks, but we are with you.”

        He thanked me and gave Fritz and me a blessing.

  When we walked away, I felt that familiar tingling I get after going to confession. That faithful flush that leaves me quieter inside, even when my mouth spent the morning running without supervision.

     I don’t know whether that belongs among the mysteries of my faith. I do know that it stayed with me as we walked away.

    I kept thinking about that man. About the hatred Jewish people face. About what it takes to walk into the world wearing your faith where everybody can see it, knowing somebody might hate you before you have even opened your mouth.

        He opened his with “Shalom.”

                           Peace.

    I have lost acquaintances over my support for Israel and my love for Jews.

I give two shits.

    I am also a friend of the homos and lesbos and my soul brothers and sisters. If you want to hurt any of them, Jumbo will not stand for it.

    My vocabulary might not get me invited to chair the campus sensitivity committee. I can live with that. When somebody needs a friend, I intend to show up.

    Fritz challenged me Monday. Good, I am glad he has the backbone to question his father. We can keep talking. I will keep nurturing and showing my crude look at the world. That is part of his education.

   We learned about financial aid, computers and engineering, and campus security. We talked about who belongs, what freedom means, and what we owe a stranger.

    And a Jewish man blessed a couple of Catlicks in a university hallway.

Today’s chalkboard says, “A small act is worth a million thoughts.”

       I am still thinking about Schlomo and what he took from meeting the Shepleys.

          Go team!

October 12th, 2026

      We get all worked up over the White Sox, and every autumn besides 2005, we end up wondering why the hell we did that to ourselves again.

   Then we get all worked up over Ditka passing away and forget there is still a football game to play. I was guilty, I figured the Coach arriving in heaven might give the Bears a little divine timing against the Packers.

   Apparently, heaven doesn’t take requests from the Bears’ front office.

The Packers beat the living crap out of Iron Mike’s team on Sunday. How are all those assclowns who have spent the last ten months chanting “Green Bay Sucks” feeling this morning? That chant would sound a whole lot better if we occasionally gave them a reason to believe it.

   I’m not sure any of this bullshit matters nearly as much as we let it.

    Over the weekend, I added three more people to my daily conference call to heaven. The list never gets shorter; it only gets longer. Some mornings, I spend more time talking to people up there than I do to people down here.

      Now I have to put Pope Leo on the fucking prayer list.

   I got so carried away with having one of our guys in the Vatican that I figured God might finally look favorably upon his baseball and football teams. Meanwhile, Father Bob has to have some cancer removed this week.

That puts a loss to the Indians and an ass-kicking from the Packers in their proper places.

    Our guy in the Vatican is still a guy. A Southside guy who can get sick, fall down, and needs our prayers like anybody else. We are so busy being proud of him that we can forget to worry about him.

       But the more I think about it…  nine innings of baseball, four quarters of football, and five decades of a rosary have something in common.

    Each gives us a reason to stop for a while and to believe something good might happen. To share a little of our lives with somebody else.

   Sometimes we get a victory. Sometimes we get our hearts broken. Sometimes we finish the prayer and still don’t understand a damn thing.

       Then we get up and keep moving.

There is another game, another season and another morning when somebody needs us.

     …And in my faith, there is a season beyond all of this that never ends, Eternal life. I am counting on a pretty good crowd when I get there.

       So, let’s go, White Sox, let’s go, Bears, and let’s go, Papa God.

   Today is Columbus Day. I’m grateful for the courage of people who took chances, crossed oceans, and risked their lives. The road that brought us here was ugly in places, and we ought to be honest about that.

    When you order a steak, you are mostly thinking about the plate when it lands in front of you, but somebody did the work to get it there.

    America came to us through the work, courage, mistakes, and suffering of generations. Now it is our turn to take care of what we’ve been handed and leave something better for our kids.

     This morning’s chalkboard says, “Keep moving forward, even if you have to crawl.”

     After this weekend, crawling sounds about right, but I’m still moving, still cheering, still praying.

         Gusto, astonishment, and a prayer for Leo. 

October 11th, 2026

    "Being messy just means being alive!"
         Life was a hell of a mixed bag this week.
   It started with the White Sox continuing their march toward baseball immortality. For a brief moment, the Pale Hose had us believing in miracles. Unfortunately, reality caught up with our Southsiders, sending them packing for their annual winter vacation.
     By the end of the week, Chicago legend Mike Ditka had joined Heaven's roster. Somewhere up there, I imagine the Coach is already complaining about the officiating, questioning God's play-calling, and demanding that somebody block that goddamn outside linebacker.
     The week was not finished reminding me about the passage of time.
      Saturday brought me to a wedding.
  The youngest daughter of my old friend Bill Hamilton was getting married. It was a beautiful celebration, filled with family, friends, laughter, and enough generations to make a genealogist reach for a bottle of Jack Daniels.
   Her two older sisters were there with their husbands, toddlers, and babies. The young mothers had important responsibilities as members of the wedding party, leaving their husbands in charge of feeding, entertaining, and preventing the next generation of Hamilton descendants from destroying the reception hall.
    The mothers delivered beautiful speeches and heartfelt toasts to their little sister and newest brother-in-law, while their young husbands performed their own acts of heroism involving juice boxes, and negotiations with small human beings who had zero desire to be at a wedding reception.
    Watching the whole production, I could not help remembering that not terribly long ago, we were the young parents trying to survive a Saturday night.
        And before that, we were the brides and grooms.
   I spent much of the evening hugging and catching up with friends I have known for forty years.
              Forty fucking years.
    That number sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud.
  I remember when we were the young people at these weddings. Our parents sat proudly at their tables, watching their children begin new lives. They smiled as we danced, drank, laughed, and carried on like we were going to live forever.
       Now we are the parents.
    We are the generation sitting at the tables, looking at our children and their children, wondering how the hell we got here so quickly.
     Bill gave a fantastic speech and danced with his daughter, looking every bit the dapper daddy of the bride.
         Thirty-one years ago, he was the groom.
  Back then, his parents were watching the same youthful exuberance that I witnessed Saturday night. The faces have changed, the music is different, and the dresses probably cost three times as much, but the celebration remains familiar.
    The only difference is that I now need a scorecard to identify all the Hamilton offspring, their spouses, and their children.
    At my table sat three couples whose weddings I attended decades ago.
 At one of those weddings, my buddy sitting across from me and I were doing chest bumps on the dance floor. That wedding was for the couple sitting to my right Saturday night.
    We were young, strong, stupid, and convinced we were indestructible.
 We played softball at Ridgeland. We played tackle football in Lincoln Park without helmets, insurance, or common sense to know better.
   We made chili in our first apartments and gathered around televisions to watch Mike Ditka’s Bears beat the living hell out of the Packers and Patriots.
          Life was simple.
   Our bodies worked, our hair was plentiful, and nobody gave a shit about the sodium content of the potatoes.
     Saturday night, our conversation had evolved considerably.
  The band was too loud. The spotlights were too bright, and somebody thought the potatoes were too salty.
            Jesus Christ. We have become our parents.
   Toward the end of the evening, I decided to execute the time honored Irish goodbye.
   No speeches or extended farewells. Just quietly slip out the door and disappear into the night.
              I almost made it.
   Standing near the exit was the grandfather of the groom, a ninety-two-year-old gentleman with a cane. He stopped me with a question.
            "Do you know the score of the Sox game?"
   My escape had been foiled by a man who was ninety-two years into his own adventure.
    He and his wife were sitting on a couch in the foyer because they, too, thought the music was too damn loud.
  He introduced me to his second wife and casually mentioned that his first wife was also attending the wedding. They were still friends watching their son’s son get married into the Wild Turkeys.
     Here is a man who understands diplomacy, forgiveness, and the importance of not burning bridges.
      We started talking.
     About Fenwick and Mr. Lattner.
       About Johnny Morris and the Bears.
         About Chicago, old neighborhoods, God, and second chances.
  He asked where I lived. I told him a place where I can sometimes hear the lions roaring from across the river.
     We talked like two old friends who had simply forgotten to meet each other until his grandson’s wedding.
      There was something about that conversation.
    Here was a man approaching a century on this earth, sitting beside his wife, enjoying a wedding, discussing old memories, and still interested in the score of a baseball game.
     He wasn't finished with life, not by a long shot. He was still participating, still curious, still collecting stories, and still following the White Sox.
     Driving home, I thought about the evening and the people who have accompanied me through my life. Friends who have witnessed my finest moments and forgiven some of my stupidest ones. People who have loved me despite knowing exactly who I am. People who show up with a phone call, a visit, a laugh, or a shoulder when life gets difficult.
    Forty years of weddings, funerals, births, opening days, broken hearts, second chances, and memories that grow richer every time we tell them.
   We have buried parents, welcomed grandchildren, celebrated victories, and survived disappointments.
     We have lost some people we never imagined living without, and somehow, here we are, making another memory on a Saturday night in Bensenville.
    I started the week watching a baseball team remind me that hope doesn't always deliver. Then came the passing of a Chicago legend, reminding me that even the toughest eventually leave the field.
     I ended the week watching a beautiful young couple begin their lives together, surrounded by generations of love, and talking about life with a ninety-two-year-old gentleman who still had plenty of living to do.
    That is quite an incredible week.
 Today's Chalkboard reminds us that being messy just means being alive, and life is gloriously messy.
   The weddings, the mysteries of our faith, the funerals, the friendships, the mistakes, the second marriages, the salty potatoes, and the Irish goodbyes that never quite work.
    It is all part of the same beautiful, unpredictable story.
  I used to think growing old meant gradually running out of things to look forward to.
        Saturday night changed my mind.
  If I am lucky, someday I will be the ninety-two-year-old guy with the cane, stopping the guy to ask him the Sox score.
       … And maybe he will take a few minutes and listen to an old man's stories.
    Maybe I will tell him about Mayor Daley, old Sox Park, the trading floor, and all the wonderful people who made my life such an interesting mess.
     Because gusto and astonishment does not belong to the young.
      Gusto and astonishment have a past, a present, and, if we are lucky, one hell of a future.
           And who knows?
    Maybe by the time I am ninety-two, the White Sox will win another World Series, and the Bears will win another Superbowl.
     Now that is something worth living thirty-two more years to see……

October 10th, 2026

 It isn't a coincidence that Mike Ditka died two days before his Chicago Bears take the field against the Green Bay Packers. Somewhere in heaven, George Halas is probably handing him a headset and telling him to get his ass down to Lambeau.

My only Mike Ditka story is a quick one, but it is a good one.

The golf club my in-laws belonged to held an annual golf tournament followed by a big dance party in the parking lot. The evening always ended with a spectacular fireworks show. It was one of those end of summer traditions, filled with cocktails, old friends, and people pretending they had played better golf than they actually did.

Ditka was playing in the tournament the year Terri was pregnant with George. She was about three weeks away from bringing our first child into the world.

She was glowing with life. She wore a colorful summer dress that hugged her round belly, and she was absolutely beautiful. There is something magical about a woman carrying her first child, especially when you are the lucky prick responsible for half of the equation.

We had just arrived at the club and were walking down the hallway toward the bar to meet her parents. At the end of the hall, near the entrance to the pub, was the men's room.

Suddenly, the door swung open and out walked The Coach.

Mike Ditka, Iron Mike. The man who had delivered Chicago its greatest football season and a Super Bowl ass-kicking that Bears fans will still be talking about when the sun burns out.

…And he was walking straight toward us.

Without missing a beat, I stuck out my hand and said, "Hello, Coach. I'd like you to meet my wife, Terri Shepley."

I said it with the confidence of a man who had known Ditka for thirty years. Like we were old drinking buddies. Like he might ask me how my mother was doing or whether I was coming over for Thanksgiving.

Ditka didn't hesitate.

He placed those enormous hands of his right on Terri's pregnant belly.

Then he looked me up and down. Once… Twice…

"Just what the world needs," he growled, "another broken-down noseguard."

He gave me that famous Ditka stare. The kind that made me think he was about to grab my facemask, drag my sorry ass to the bench, and explain exactly why I sucked.

I just stood there grinning like an idiot.

Then something wonderful happened.

Those massive hands slid from Terri's belly to her shoulders. The scowl disappeared. He smiled at her with a gentleness you did not often see on the sidelines at Soldier Field.

"Good luck, dear. God bless your family."

…And just like that, Iron Mike became a sweetheart.

He stepped around Terri, gave me a little shoulder bump on the way past, just to remind me who was in charge, and hobbled toward the foyer. Within seconds, he disappeared into a crowd of people who looked at him the way Catholics look at the Pope.

Only in Chicago could a football coach walk out of a men's room and create a religious experience.

Terri was already the prettiest woman at Butterfield that evening. But now she had a smile that stretched from one ear to the other, and that glow of hers had somehow grown even brighter.

When we reached her parents, she told them what had happened with all the excitement of a little girl who had just met Santa Claus.

I stood there enjoying every second of it.

That is it. That is my Mike Ditka story.

It lasted maybe thirty seconds, but here I am, all these years later, remembering every moment of it.

Funny how life works. A man who gave an entire city one of its greatest sporting memories also gave a broken-down nose guard and his very pregnant wife a little moment they would carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Ditka probably forgot the encounter before he reached the parking lot, but I never did.

I suppose that is what happens when the people who shaped your younger years begin to leave this world. They take a little piece of your history with them. The games, the people, the celebrations, the summers when your children had not been born yet and everything wonderful was still waiting around the corner.

We didn't just lose a football coach this week. We lost another piece of our own lives.

Tomorrow, the Bears will take the field at Lambeau, and I have a feeling Da Coach will be there. Somewhere along that sideline, wearing his trademark sweater vest, jaw clenched, eyes burning, looking for somebody to chew out.

And if heaven has any sense of humor, he is still telling Halas how to run the damn football team.

Rest easy, Coach.

Thanks for the memory. Thanks for making the ShepKids mom smile.

And thanks for 46-10

October 9th, 2026

 

      It is Crop Report Day.

Most of you Chalkheads have seen the movie Trading Places at one point in your life. Remember the scene when the trading pit starts buzzing with anticipation before the crop report is released? The tension builds, the numbers come out, and all hell breaks loose.

   That was Hollywood's version of open outcry trading. Believe me when I tell you, they were not far off.

    The screaming, the pushing, the frantic hand signals, the elbows flying, and the occasional shower of spit from some lunatic trying to make a market. It was organized chaos.

        Looking back, it was the perfect job for a thirty-year-old Jumbo.

 I am not so sure sixty-year-old Jumbo could stand in that same pit today, waiting for an unemployment number, and summon the same energy and enthusiasm. Hell, just watching those old videos on YouTube makes my knees hurt.

      Fortunately, I don't have to find out.

  These days, when an economic report is released, I am standing at my trading desk. The excitement is still there. The adrenaline still flows. The clock ticks down, the numbers hit the screen, and the markets still react, but the battlefield is a whole lot more forgiving.

   I don't have arms waving inches from my face. I don't have spit flying in every direction. Nobody is shoving me out of the way to grab a bid or an offer.

      And I don't have to fight my way through a crowd of screaming grown men just to get a trade done.

    There is still plenty of yelling. There are still multiple orders coming at once, customers wanting fills, markets moving, and the constant juggling act of getting everything executed in a timely and orderly fashion.

     The business hasn't lost its excitement. It has simply changed its surroundings.

    Thirty-year-old Jumbo was right where he belonged, standing in the bond room at the Chicago Board of Trade, surrounded by noise, confusion, and enough testosterone to power a small city.

        And sixty-year-old Jumbo is right where he belongs today.

  I am no longer in that grand old Board of Trade building, looking north at LaSalle Street. Instead, I am fourteen floors above the suburbs, looking out over the western reaches of Chicagoland. The view has changed, the noise has softened and the years have piled up, but the anticipation of the next number hasn't changed a bit.

    I am fortunate to still be in this business. Fortunate to have experienced the trading floor in its glory days, and fortunate that life has allowed me to keep doing something I love long after the pits went quiet.

    Thirty-year-old Jumbo had his time and place, and so does sixty-year-old Jumbo.

   Maybe that is what growing older is all about. Understanding that you do not have to stand in the middle of the madness to appreciate the excitement.

   Sometimes the best seat in the house is the one you have earned along the way. No matter how much the business changes, some things will always remain the same.

    Buy low and sell high.

        Hit bids and lift offers.

           Always listen for the roar of an uptick and the scream of a downtick.

  That will get you through a trading session, and maybe even through the difficulties of life.

       Gusto and astonishment, it is Friday.