April 2nd, 2025

 April never gets the respect that it possibly deserves. It is the month that we usually wipe our feet from the winter slop, but can’t hold our breath just yet. It is the month that teases us with a taste of what lies ahead and then rips our hopes with a kick of a winter’s dread.

April was once the month when we’d head to the ballpark for Opening Day. Greed has moved the first pitch well into March nowadays.

On the flip side, the NCAA Tournament would conclude by March 31st. That is why it is called “March Madness.” Nowadays the nets are cut down well into April.

Most of the time we are done binge watching television programs by April 1st. Nobody wants to stay in and watch TV when there is daylight until seven thirty at night.

I’ve decided to rewatch “Ted Lasso” again. After a long dreary winter filled with war and politics; I am going back to the last television series that left me with that feel good sensation.

I haven’t watched the evening news on a regular basis for some time now. The only highlight lately has been the weather girl’s skirt length. Everything else has been muddled by local teams in last place and dirty politics.

The month has finally arrived to watch the grass turn green. Soon the trees will explode with leaves and the bushes with flowering sensations.

I miss dandelions.

So many lawns are drenched with poison to kill weeds that also sweep out the little yellow treasures.

Kids today don’t have the pleasure of bringing their mommy a bouquet of dandelions from the front yard.

Dandelions, butterflies and lightning bugs have all dwindled away and have been replaced with twenty-four hour news stations.

Yeah!?!?!?

April showers bring May flowers and coincidentally the hard morning winds have just brought raindrops pelting against my bedroom window.

Time to tackle the middle of the week and slide into the first weekend of the month.

I woke up to the news of Val Kilmer passing away.

Don’t worry….. I’ll be your Huckleberry.

April 1st, 2025

 You would think that I would relish in all the activities the first day of April will bring….

…I do not!

From the fake snakes and plastic mice to the disappearing toilet paper in all the crappers.

It all went downhill in the mid 1990’s when I bit into a McDonalds cheeseburger that had a Tampax between the bun and the burger.

I was standing in the trading pit. We sent the trade checker over to grab twenty-five cheeseburgers. Two of them were boobie trapped with tampons. Mike Joubert and I were the foolish souls to get handed the trapped sandwiches.

Mike embarrassingly laughed it off. I flung my burger back at the douchebag that set me up.

Fuck April Fools’ Day and all the bullshit that’s about to occur in the next twelve hours.

It will be all shits and giggles from television reporters to politicians.

And yeah, I’m guilty for stupid pranks during my life. I sure hope I don’t have to go to purgatory for the shark fins, gum traps and twenty dollar bills attached to fishing line. I could burn in hell for the many times the CBOT phone operator paged Michael Hunt or Phil McCrevis.

I forgot…. People that never worked on a trading floor don’t know what a "shark fin" is.

You take a trading card and rip an angle on it to represent a shark fin. Then you fold the straight end and tear the fold halfway. The tear and fold enables you to place it under the collar of a trading jacket just below the nape of the victim's neck.

It usually happens to the kid on his first day working on the trading floor. One guy shakes his hand and welcomes him to the Chicago Board of Trade while the other guy places the fin onto the victims brand new trading jacket.

When the new guy walks away, the entire floor starts warning everyone to get out of the water. Some guys scream out “Shark.” Some guys start acting out the old SNL skit “Landshark.”

"Shark.... Get out of the water!"

"Get out of the water, there is a shark! Shark!"

Finally a grown up, usually a female who despises the immaturity around her, pulls the shark fin off of the victim's back and hands it to him. She then welcomes him to the Chicago Board of Trade and warns him to get used to all the bullshit and assclowns.

Happy April Fucking Fools Day…

Today, I’m celebrating sourdough bread day. I have told you Chalkheads that I’ve met a lovely baker that makes incredible sourdough bread?

Let me know and I’ll hook you up.

Try and take today with a grain of salt. Most of these pranks today will be harmless, but beware of the loosely wrapped McDonalds Cheeseburger….

…hopefully today’s quote will leave you earwormed.

March 31st, 2025

 When it is all said and done, I’m not going to remember March of twenty-five fondly.

I am going to blame the portal between the eclipses for the negativity and bad ju-ju.

Let’s get this somabitch over with and flip the calendar on the kitchen wall.

I’m going to go listen to the breeze on an early Monday morning. It might blow in the answer to that million dollar question.

Stay Gold Ponyboy….

March 30th, 2025

Today's quote popped up on a meme recently. It comes from an Edgar Allan Poe poem titled "Annabel Lee."

I was given the task as a seventeen-year-old boy to do a paper on this poem. I can still read the words from that assignment in my head forty years later. It would have been a better grade if I had the wisdom and experience the last forty years has brought.

In the poem, Poe talks about a young man in mourn because he lost the love of his life to death.

In my forty years since that C- paper, I only lost love because of a failure to keep it kindled. I found it when it was pure and meaningful, but I couldn't keep it strong. I let it lose its meaning.

I have never been able to truly complete my assignment the way my instructor expected. When we are young, we look at love with hope and romance. We don't see the daily chores that love insists on having to keep it nurtured. Love was lollypops, unicorns, firecrackers and whoopie cushions when I wrote that paper.

I have dated widows, divorcees and never married women since the end of my Exile west of Mannheim. All of them shared a part of their heart with me during our time together.

The widows mourn for their Annabel Lee, the divorced despise their Annabel Lee and the singles search for their Annabel Lee.

I quoted Lord Tennyson in that C- paper. It didn't impress my teacher at the time and it no longer impresses me. I used Alfred's famous line, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

That is a crock of shit and a complete copout.

The shittiest pain we come across in life is the loss of love. No doubt about it.

The love that I lost to death has turned into a spiritual love that transcends the heavens and masks my grief. I never let go of the loved ones that died because, either due to my faith or the fact that I am simply bullshitting myself, they are all a phone call away. I can't reach them with AT&T, but I can talk with them through prayer.

As for the love I lost due to the pilot light going out and the matches soaked in tears.... I mask that grief with the three things that call me "Dad."

I woke up thinking about a pizza puff. Did you know the pizza puff was invented in Chicago?

I can't have a pizza puff for another month, but it is highly likely....

...my lips will be around one in the merry month of May.

Sometimes I will order a pizza puff instead of French fries.

Don't laugh!

Try it!

Next time you go to your favorite hotdog joint. Try a hotdog with a pizza puff or an Italian beef and a pizza puff. Fucking gourmet heaven.....

This week brings us the month of April. Soon the Jews will be having Seder and the Catlicks will be splitting up jellybeans.

Go out there and compose a "C-" paper that will someday become an "A" due to life's experience.

Annabel Lee

By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

March 29th, 2025

 Today’s quote comes from existentialist writer and philosopher, Albert Camus.

I’m not going to get real deep into this quote this morning.

Let me delicately put this in Chicagonese.

“Youse better give a shit today and work your ass off. Do good shit for da guy down the block. Try to go ta mass and don’t bitch and moan.

Why youse ask?

‘Cause God willing… but you never noze about tomorrow. Do today and maybe tomorrow will bring da blessing.

(Read that in a Chicago Brogue)

I will never claim to know the ins and outs of existentialism, but I do know Grawbowskism.

Give everything you have today to God, your Family and your friends. Work your dick off for your employer and take your Christmas tree down before the middle of January.

For years I’ve talked about getting straight F’s in life.

•Foundation: Faith, Family and Friends•

A friend of mine recently told me that you should strive to get a couple C’s in life as well.

•Choice, Chances and Changes•

You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.

C’s and F’s in life….

….wont get you on the honor roll, but it will make today better and tomorrow possibly brighter.

Today is rugby day… The Chicago Hounds are down in New Orleans this evening to punch Nola Gold around the pitch.

Play well Gentlemen.

March 28th, 2028

 The last weekend of March. It’s going to be warm and rainy just like it is supposed to be.

Might be a good time to sweep the sheds and do some spring cleaning.

Chicago baseball season started out with a couple wins yesterday. We have that going for us today.

I’m going to enjoy my coffee as this early morning storm rolls in over the river. The lions are roaring loud this morning and lightning is pounding the horizon.

Enjoy the end of March

March 27th, 2025

  Summer of ‘78, I was playing catch in the front yard with my new stepbrother. My dad remarried earlier that year and I suddenly had three stepbrothers and a stepmother.

My recently acquired sibling was a couple years younger than me. We were playing catch with a league even though he pleaded to play with a rubber ball.

It was just before dinner and my father appeared from around the corner. He was walking home from the Lake Street CTA. A cigarette was hanging from his mouth. The papers tucked under the arm of his blue sport coat, wrinkled from a long day at work.

I started showing off as he walked closer to the house. Throwing fastballs at my stepbrother who wasn’t very good at baseball. My dad was standing near his new wife’s son. The Oldman knew right away the kid was struggling and told me to take it easy with him.

That’s when I became Nolan Ryan and threw the baseball as hard as I could. It all happened for me in slow motion. The ball left my left hand and whizzed through the warm July air. Passed my new stepbrothers' baseball glove and hit him square in the face.

Blood and tears everywhere.

I was satisfied with taking down some kid that I suddenly had to share my father with. My brand new stepmomster came running out of the house, down the stoop and across the front yard.

She threw her arms around her bleeding son and called me a bully.

She was right, I was a bully. I was a twelve-year-old kid that was moving out of state that summer. Leaving my dad with his new wife and her three sons.

I had a shit ton of aggression to get out of my system before the move to Indianapolis.

My chest was pumped with pride as I replied that I was wasting my time teaching her crybaby son how to catch a baseball.

That triggered my Oldman. His briefcase hit the sidewalk. He flung his half smoked cigarette onto the street and his folded up Tribune flew up in the air. Coming apart and littering the parkway of our neighbor’s yard.

The Oldman clenched his fist and walloped me in the face. Now I had blood running down my face, but I didn’t have tears.

I tucked my mitt under my arm and walked towards the Ridgeland el stop. The same CTA stop my Oldman just came from after a long day in the Loop.

I had about seven bucks in my pocket and a few CTA tokens that I kept in my wallet. It was one of those new fancy wallets that was made with nylon and closed with velcro. I just got it for my birthday, from my dad’s new wife.

I jumped on the first el that arrived at the station. This would have been an even more adventurous story if that train was heading into Chicago, but this one was a westbound heading to the end of the Lake Street line at Harlem Avenue.

I went west towards downtown Oak Park. It was dinner time, so I walked to the diner across from the bank.

I sat down and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. The waitress noticed the blood on my shirt and secretly called Oak Park’s finest. My supper never arrived, but the police sure did.

Instead of enjoying dinner by myself, I was escorted to the back of a police car. I was back at 220 South Lombard about forty-five minutes after I walked away.

Sitting on the front porch was my dad. Smoking a cigarette and reading the tribune that blew down the street during the aftermath of my fastball incident.

“Good evening officer….”

“Good evening Mr. Shepley, he was sitting in the diner on Marion Street ordering dinner.”

“Thanks for getting him, you might need to call a mortician and Father Harris.”

The police officer laughed as he headed back to his car. You could say shit like that back in 1978. Today, my Oldman would have been placed in the back of that squad car.

I never apologized to that kid or his mother. A few days later I joined my mom in our new home that was one hundred and seventy-six miles away from that front stoop at 220 South Lombard.

I drive by the house often and the first thing I think about every time is the Oldman defending his stepson.

I’m still bitter to this day. Maybe I should have gone to a shrink, but back then we bowed our neck, lowered our shoulders and barreled through.

Almost fifty years later and this Chalkboard is my therapy.

This story is today’s flashback because yesterday, George and I had a lifetime moment that might just be George’s bad memory.

I didn’t punch him, but I threw a water bottle at him in the middle of Lincoln Avenue. Instead of the CTA, George walked over to the Metra. Riverside police snagged him up for me before the train came.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The point is….

…all families are dysfunctional and have bad days. You gotta have the bad days to cherish the good days. Now you know the story and I hope it helps a Chalkhead find some settlement in a moment that hurt their past.

Time is getting shorter and all we have is each other.

Today is opening day at Sox Park. I’ll be watching the ballgame on television this year.

Don’t be ashamed of things that happened in the past. Unless your team lost 121 games last year. That is something that can never be healed.

March 26th, 2025

 Go ahead and reread today’s quote, but imagine Mr Rogers’ voice when you’re doing it.

Isn’t it more comforting when you do it that way?

My dad’s home, my dad’s voice, my dad’s arms were the safest and most comfortable things in my life when I was growing up.

Those are all long gone.

BUTT…… you can still catch me watching “Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood” on repeats or even on YouTube.

And for the message in his quote.

I hold these words as truth and I apply them to each day. Yesterday was the end of something and tomorrow will bring something else.

I read an article last night before I fell asleep. We are between eclipses. We had a lunar eclipse in the middle of the month and we have a solar eclipse at the end of the month.

The article was based on the time between these events as a spiritual awakening. A time when good things happen and opportunities are presented to us.

I’m not sure if this is mumble jumble, but I’m going to give it some consideration. The last couple weeks of March will bring prosperity and peace into my life. All because of the moon and the sun. Two things that I keep my eyes on everyday.

I’ve made a point of telling you Chalkheads to always know where the sun and the moon is. Always know where they place your shadow. That is why I have the time in the bottom left hand corner of the Morning Chalkboard every day.

Having the sunrise and sunset or a waning crescent shining through the bedroom window while we sleep is comforting.

Almost as comforting as our parents love or a children’s show on PBS.

Each sunset brings the end to something and every sunrise brings something else.

Let Wednesday the 26th of March bring something else. Something that brings astonishment.

March 25th, 2025

     Here we are on the last Tuesday of the month.

As I was chalking down today’s quote, I earwormed myself with the Phil Collins song, “One More Night.”

I could think of worse songs to be humming in my head as I looked up how many days until the big religious holidays this spring.

That song is forty years old. It came out in 1985. World War Two was forty years old when Phil Collins crooned about having just one more night.

Forty years and I still don’t know what the hell “Sussudio” means. So I used that google deal and looked it up. I think I was better off not knowing. I suggest that you don’t google it. You’ll only be let down like I was. Not knowing what sussudio means is probably a good thing.

Back to the quote….

“One more time”

After going through six months of natures declined into winter hibernation, we get another chance at watching rebirth.

I am already starting to hear the morning songbirds with their pre dawn chorus.

Early spring flowers are starting to pop up in the garden and soon the buds will appear on the barren tree branches.

We are getting another chance to witness the glory of spring. Our Hindu brothers and sisters just celebrated their spring festival of Holi.

Soon our Jewish friends will set a chair for Elijah at their Passover table and Christians will pay high prices for Easter eggs.

Spring is upon us and we get another shot and witnessing rebirth.

It’s time to wash the winter filth off of the dining room window. It’s time to get the Speedo out of storage and it’s time to fill up the tires on the Schwinn.

I don’t know about you, but I’m done Wintering. I’m ready for a rebirth and another glance at the beauty around me.

The older that I get, the more important spring has become. It’s an annual second chance at experiencing how fucking glorious life is.

Spring is springing. It hasn’t sprung yet, but it’s starting to spring. Get ready to listen to the rush of a spring breeze through the fresh foliage and the smell of new cut grass filling the air.

Roll down the car windows and jam some Phil Collins today. Make sure you’re at a stoplight for any drum solos.

March 24th, 2025

 I woke up to a loud crash in the kitchen just after three o’clock this morning. It was my wok that hangs from a hook over my sink. It was laying in the middle of the kitchen floor just waiting for me to place it back on the hook.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in spirits…

… and one of the spirits that energizes around my soul had something to say this morning.

I’m going to be searching for the mystery behind the fallen wok for the rest of the day.

First things first…

I want to talk about what woke me up Sunday morning. It was my favorite Leonard Cohen song and no it isn’t “Hallelujah.”

I go with his song, “Bird on the Wire.” Like many Cohen songs, his version is good, but some of the covers are even better. Each artists spilling their hearts into their own interpretation of the lyrics.

From Judy Collins and Willie Nelson, to Kris Kristofferson and Alan Neville. My favorite cover is by Johnny Cash.

Every essay I read about today’s quote centers around freedom. I never put any thought into Cohen struggling with freedom in his poetic words. I always heard a struggle to find balance in life and having a voice that can be heard.

The first half of life is a fight with awkwardness. The stages of adolescence into the beginning of adulthood is a battle of sorting out our very existence.

Finding that balance between sadness and happiness. Learning how to incorporate confidence in ourselves.

Sometimes a mentor or a coach can bring the balance of life out of us. The way life nurtures us determines if we can balance on a wire. It’s a fine line between success and failure. The winds of life are constantly trying to force us from our perch. Most often we fall to the ground. It is how we get back up that determines who we are.

It could have been worse! We could have gotten electrocuted…

We have all been the drunk in the choir. The time before we find the right voice to express who we are and what we are about. Some adults never find the right note to hit and are left with a battle.

The key to a successful adulthood and a peaceful life is finding our balance and finding our voice. That is what today’s quote and the poetic words of Leonard Cohen mean to me. That is what gives us freedom on this journey.

Balance and Voice….

Today is National Cocktail Day. It kind of sucks that it falls on a Monday and it is even worse for me. I’m only a third of the way into my sixty day sabbatical. If I were to have a cocktail tonight, it would be a manhattan or a martini. When I say martini, I use the mothership of booze for mine….. gin.

Time to use my voice and balance my big ass on the tightrope of life.

Go be astonished this week