February 4th, 2026

 Friendship is that check-in text out of the blue.

It is the birthday present from a quick trip to Walgreens or the long conversation about Janet Jackson's nipple at the Superbowl.

It is the showing up without announcing yourself, but bringing a growler of BuckleDown and an Alpine sub.

Friendship is calling your friend's mom and thanking her for bringing their child into the world to become your friend.

It is knowing when to speak and when to sit quietly and listen.

It is shared memory of cold opening days at Sox Park and watching parents fade away.

Friendship is knowing all the stupid shit and still supporting one another.

A true friend shines brightly when the world is dark.

If you are someone's friend... remind them that today is National Sweater Day and to leave that ugly one from 1994 in the drawer.

Friendship is for sharing gusto and astonishment.

Happy Birthday B.H..

February 3rd, 2026

 I borrowed a piece of a Churchill line this morning: “To be perfect is to change often.”

That sounds good for the Tuesday Chalkboard. It sounds noble and strong, but it just doesn’t fit me.

I’m not close to perfect, because I’m not built for constant change. Subtle change sure, but abrupt change has zero chance. I am a creature of habit, and I wear that badge comfortably. My bed has pointed north–south for most of my adult life so the sun knows exactly where to find me. Right in the morning and left in the afternoon. I still own shoes and coats that have been with me for thirty years. I am a white undershirt guy. Probably instilled into me after a dozen years of a Catholic school uniform. My coffee is strong and black like my running back, Walter Payton.

I have had to deal with some big changes through the years. Life, of course, had other plans. They closed my trading pit and handed me a computer monitor. They stopped printing my newspaper, and instead of folding it just right, I squint at headlines on a mobile phone. I still trust my radio more than a playlist or whatever they are calling those things now. Napster, PandaBear, iTunes........

Give me an Old Style over an IPA, a tavern over a bistro, and a dart board that doesn't make noises with flashing lights.

This Sunday, I will be watching the Super Bowl. Not this Super Bowl, the one I have on a beta tape from 1986.

I still call it the Sears Tower. My baseball team plays at Comiskey Park. A Daley will always be the greatest mayor this city ever had.

When I make it to Mass, rare, but sincere... I get looks because my words are older than the room. When the priest says, “The Lord be with you,” you will hear my old Board of Trade voice boom back:

“And also with you, Father.”

So no, I’m far from perfect, but I am perfectly consistent.

I will keep watching the sun, the moon, and the stars. I will take sausage and onions on my pizza and no ketchup on my hot dog. Give me a strong can and a subtle breast. A day game over one under the lights and an autumn night with a glass of bourbon over that summer night with a mojito.

Change happens, but some things are worth keeping exactly where they are.

February 2nd, 2026

Langston Hughes understood something most people spend their lives dodging. A dream isn’t a luxury, it is a load-bearing wall. In Dreams, he doesn’t romanticize the idea. He warns, without dreams, life doesn’t merely disappoint, but it stops. It becomes a bird with a broken wing. A field locked in ice.

Now we drop Ned Ryerson into that frozen field.

Ned isn’t a villain. He is worse. He is what happens when motion replaces meaning. He is cheerful, persistent, relentlessly upbeat and completely unchanged. Every morning he pops up the same way, armed with the same pitch, the same smile, the same certainty that today will finally be the day it works. Ned has no dream. He has only a script, and because of that, he is trapped in repetition without growth.

How do we connect a poet from the Harlem renaissance and a movie from the early 1990's?

Langston Hughes is talking about dreams dying. Groundhog Day shows us what happens when they never existed in the first place.

Ned lives, but he doesn’t move. He speaks, but he doesn’t progress. He is animated proof that energy without intention is just another form of paralysis. The alarm rings. “Bing!” The day resets and without a dream, tomorrow is just today wearing a different tie.

Hughes’ frozen field isn’t quiet despair... it is loud routine. It is showing up without becoming. It is confusing hustle for hope. It is believing that repetition alone will eventually turn into purpose.

So, the warning is sharper than it looks... Don’t let your dreams die.

Because the most dangerous life isn’t broken. It is functional, friendly, and frozen. It is the life where the sun doesn't smile and astonishment doesn't exist.

My alarm goes off every morning at 3:33am. For the last ten years it has been ELO's Mr. Blue Sky. I think it is time to change the song.......

February 1st, 2026

 February is a short month, but it carries a strange weight. It bridges the freshness of a new year with the tail end of football season and the slow, stubborn approach of spring. It is a month caught in the middle, never fully one thing or the other.

Sure, we get our February markers: Groundhog Day, Saint Valentine’s Day, and a late Super Bowl. A game that doesn’t quite carry the same electricity it once did. Six Nations rugby helps, it always does, but February still asks you to be patient. The first match is this Thursday afternoon, Ireland versus France. The James Joyce will be showing the match if you need a place to cheer and have a pint.

Today’s grabber is really just a note for me to tune in to WDCB at noon. They are airing a documentary on the making of Kind of Blue, a record that still feels like it fell out of the sky fully formed. Jazz doesn’t get much better than this Miles Davis masterpiece.

The sun looks like it plans to show up today, riding in on the heels of last night’s full moon. I left my old wool argyle sweater on the door handle for a Saint Brigid blessing. Now it is meant to keep me warmer and maybe heal me when I get sick.

Alright, Chalkheads, let's start the new month with gusto and a little astonishment. The sun is lingering longer into the afternoon and has a smile today. Smile back and let yourself feel renewed.

January 30th, 2026

 Last Friday of January with a full moon showing up on Sunday.

January 29th, 2026

 Wisdom isn’t knowing the road...

... it is knowing why you keep taking the same one.

January 28th, 2026

 A line today from Maya Angelou, after a day that threw a few punches but never knocked anyone down. Some days test your balance, other days test your patience. Especially the kind that remind you why certain warning signs were posted in the first place.

I saw the red flags once and mistook them for character. That is a mistake you only make if you believe too hard and listen too little. Lesson learned and the price still paid.

I could have ridden off, but I didn’t. I could have disappeared on the Saint Charles streetcar, but I didn’t. That isn't weakness, that is choosing to stand where you are and finish the damn job.

I won’t be laid out defeated and carried off quietly, and I sure as hell won’t let the elevator bring me down.

Today is our first post–5:00 PM sunset across Chicagoland in 2026. The light is staying on a little longer. That gives us more daylight for astonishment.

January 27th, 2026

 Harper Lee reminds us that “the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

That truth lives in the story my dad carried with him throughout his life.

His mentor bore a grizzly tattoo on his left arm. A five or six-digit number burned there by the Holocaust. A number meant to reduce a man to inventory. Auschwitz was built to erase names, futures, and conscience itself. Yet that man refused to let the mark finish the job. He lived past the brutality. He worked and he mentored a callow Don Shepley into a long, honest career, and in doing so turned an act of absolute cruelty into a quiet gift. That man molded a young draftsman and mechanical engineer. Giving him a solid foundation in a long railroad career.

That is the part that should stop us today and make us ponder.

Every person murdered by the nazis wasn’t just a victim. They were a teacher not yet met, a mentor not yet given, a kindness not yet passed along. The world didn’t just lose lives...

... it lost generations of guidance, craft, patience, and wisdom.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day isn’t only about remembering how evil looks when conscience is abandoned by the crowd. It is about honoring those who, even after surviving hell, chose to live as proof that conscience still matters, and mourning all the good that never got the chance to happen.

That number on his arm was meant to dehumanize him. Instead, it became a reminder of how much one human life can mean to another.

And that is something no majority gets to vote away.

January 26th, 2026

 Forty years ago today, I watched the Bears win the Super Bowl with my best friend, which is the kind of thing that sounds ordinary until you realize how few people are still around that you can say that about.

We were Bears fans exiled in Indianapolis together, which in those days felt like being stranded in the wrong religion. So, we stuck together the way young men do when they are far from home and not yet aware how easily life separates people who swear it never will.

We watched Twenty together...

...Walter Payton, the 46 defense, the whole thing. A game so lopsided it felt less like a contest and more like a settling of old scores, 46–10, no mercy required because none was needed.

At the time, the 22 years between championships, from 1963 to that 1985 season felt endless. Like a personal injustice handed down to two kids who weren’t even alive the last time the Bears had mattered, and who had already grown tired of explaining loyalty for a team that rarely returned the favor.

Life, as it turns out, doesn’t care much about loyalty either.

The years pulled us apart quietly; jobs, families, geography, long stretches of silence. The kind of separation that doesn’t involve slammed doors or dramatic endings, just fewer calls until one day you realize you no longer know the details of another man’s life.

Someday one of us will go first, and the other will be left carrying the memory whether he wants it or not. Which in my case will always be that Sunday afternoon in 1986, two exiles in a borrowed city watching the Bears finally be great and washing away, if only for a few hours, the mediocrity we had grown up with.

Most seasons since have slipped by without much worth remembering, and we are no longer close. Barely in touch at all, but anytime the 46 defense or Walter Payton comes up, I don’t think about schemes or statistics. I think about my old friend, that day, and how quickly forty years can disappear.

Bear Down Bobby G...

January 25th, 2026

 Today’s quote is an old-world saying with deep European roots. Passed down by grandmothers who understood life well enough to tell a child...

... sometimes in the same breath that they were both a piece of dirt and a piece of heaven.

I imagine more than a few kids walked away scratching their head after that lesson. Eventually, life explains it. Humility comes for all of us. At least for those raised properly by a generation older than ours. A generation that believed in punishment and praise, correction and confidence.

If the bitter cold hasn’t handcuffed you over the last 36 hours, the snow piling up on your sidewalk and driveway will remind you exactly what season we are in. That is why I am offering a small glimmer of spring in the grabber section.

The Cubs open their season at Wrigley on Thursday, March 26, against the Washington Senators. The Sox follow a week later at Comiskey against the Toronto Argonauts. That should give you Chalkheads something to lean toward.

Until we see base hits and taste bratwursts, the depth of winter is still packed with astonishment...

... as long as you are willing to bundle up and notice it.

Today is National Irish Coffee Day. Have one before your walk through the wonderland. Have one during the walk and have another when you get home.

You have earned it.

January 24th, 2026

 Saturday morning couldn’t be any more comfortable than starting the day with a Dr. Seuss quote.

We grew up on him and Mr. Rogers, and Winnie the Pooh, and The Muppets. Throw in a clothespin and a baseball card flapping against the spokes of your Schwinn, and life felt complete. No apps, no noise, just motion and imagination.

Back then, I heard my Old Man and his contemporaries compliment damn near everyone they crossed paths with.

He made sure the morning guy at White Hen knew how GD good his coffee was.

He told the CTA employee at our stop that his entrance and platform were the best maintained on the Lake Street/Dan Ryan line.

Father Coogan was the best homilist in the archdiocese.

The baker down the street made the best chocolate éclair in Cook County.

... But the neatest thing my dad did that stuck with me was how he made the women around town feel good. He complimented lipstick, hairstyles, dresses, shoes. Always with taste and always with style. Never creepy and never cheap.

One long weekend when I was in high school, I came up to visit him and something was off. He wasn’t himself.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

He told me he had been reported at work for complimenting a woman. She reported him to the higher-ups. He was reprimanded and forced into an ethics class. He was never the same after that.

Sure, he still complimented the men around town, but he stopped altogether with women. That was the early 1980s. Then in the mid-1990s, his railroad got swallowed by a bigger railroad and he was forced into retirement.

That was when I noticed another change. He went back to complimenting everyone. Wherever Don Shepley went, there was a smile left in his wake.

Today is National Compliment Day. It is also National Beer and Peanut Butter Appreciation Day, two things I love dearly. I might need a PB&J for lunch and a growler from BuckleDown later.

... But more importantly, I’m going to compliment everyone today. The grocery store owner in town. The person passionately filling my growler. The dry cleaner that cleans splattered French fry grease from my shirts...

...And yes, especially the hot moms who cross my path.

The world needs more compliments, and it starts with a Chalkhead.

Blanket up.

Crockpot up and tell someone they are a fanfuckingtastic human being.

January 23rd, 2026

 Van Gogh wasn’t talking about fireworks kind of passion. He was talking about paying attention to life. Passion is choosing to be alive to what is right in front of you. Butter on toast with grape jelly on top. Passion is the way the sun comes up when nobody is watching. Passion is the way the sun goes down whether you notice it or not. Passion isn’t volume, it is presence. It is the difference between just breathing and feeling your lungs filled with life.

Boredom isn’t the absence of things to do. It is the refusal to see what’s already there.

What the hell are those words in the grabber section?

Those were my Oldman's terms of endearment. Only my father ever called me those words. Gworp was the topper. If we called each other a Gworp, that was it! Game over.... You are a Gworp and there isn't anything you can do about it.

But watch out if my Oldman called me a Beenzer Potzer, Flibitijib, Gworp all at once.... it would be followed by an I love you Moose.

The last conversation I had with my dad ended with....

"..... oh, you magnificent son of a bitch!"

That was the last thing my Oldman said to me, but in the word's magnificent son of a bitch, I heard "I love you, you Beenzer Potzer, Flibitijib, Gworp!"

It's cold out there. I don't miss Betty the Green Blazer this morning! Chet Lemon has that start feature from the living room deal and heater seats. It might be under zero, but my big ass was toasty on the ride out to DuPage County Board of Trade.

Let astonishment freeze up your nostrils!

January 22nd, 2026

 This quote comes from Kipling, and like most Kipling, it isn’t polite, but it is practical. He understood constancy, reliability and the quiet comfort of something that doesn’t argue back.

As an ex-husband, I’m reminded of that every time I run into the Shepkids’ mom.

Marriage is work.

Love is work and sometimes work wears you down.

A cigar, on the other hand, asks very little. It stays lit if you tend to it. It ends when it ends without negotiations and without scorekeeping.

That doesn’t mean life is easier alone, it just means simplicity has its virtues...

... and while we are deep in winter’s grip, don’t forget that the days are getting longer. In 45 days, the sun will be setting at 7:00 PM again.

Cold doesn’t last forever.

Neither do the hard times.

You just have to keep showing up until the light does. Always draw a smile on the sun when you can.

January 21st, 2026

 Today’s quote comes from a Catholic kid who took his team to the pinnacle.

He made the ultimate sacrifice not just for him, but for his teammates. A young man who has built a strong foundation with faith, family, friends, fundamentals and football.

The straight F’s in life.

It is going to be a warmer day before the bottom falls out again this weekend. The days are getting longer and before we know it, we will hear the engines zooming around the oval in Speedway and the rockets' red glare celebrating 250 years of freedom.

January 20th, 2026

 I don’t have much to say today. I stayed up late watching a football game.

IU won the Football National Championship last night.

January 19th, 2026

 Today’s quote comes from a movie with a David-and-Goliath theme. A fictional line from a film based on a true story about a basketball season in a small town in Indiana.

Most Chalkheads have seen it. A good number of you lived it, The Milan Miracle. I stood by many of you in the stands of Hinkle Fieldhouse. One season we made it to the game at Market Square Arena.

Tonight, in Miami, the role of Jimmy Chitwood is being played by a kid named Fernando Mendoza. Not your typical Hoosier name, but the game has never cared much about names.

Until the last two seasons, Indiana football carried the worst record in the history of college football. Tonight, they have a chance to ease the pain. Not just for Hoosier Nation, but for nearly everyone in the state of Indiana. Give or take a few folks up in the Lafayette area.

Tonight, let them not be daunted.

Let them work hard and not falter.

Tonight is their chance to be tried and true.

Tonight, we are all for you, Indiana.

Like Father Kelly used to say at Dear Old Cathedral:

“Play well, gentlemen.”

It is cold in Chicagoland and across the Hoosier plain.

Bundle up or just stay inside on this well-placed national holiday.

For tonight, we fight for the cream and crimson. For the glory of old IU.

January 18th, 2026

 Sorrow carves into your being isn't what you want to hear on a Sunday Funday when the menu is put together, football fans are gathering and the home team Bears are playing a team from California. A modern day version of the Smiths versus the Grabowskis.

Back to Khalil Gibran for a second and then we can go back to Abe Gibron.

Sorrow shouldn't be a wound that continuously hurts and heals and hurts and heals throughout life. Sorrow should be more like a sculptor that takes loss, disappointment, grief and failure and uses it to reshape us into something stronger.

People who haven’t suffered often experience joy shallowly...

...quick heights, quick fades.

But sorrow digs space inside you. It makes the inner vessel larger. When joy comes later, it has somewhere to land. I think that is why people who have felt real pain often laugh the hardest, love more passionately, appreciate the quieter moments and feel gratitude on ordinary days.

Gibran isn’t saying sorrow leads to joy, but that they are linked. Our same heart feels both sorrow and joy deeply. If you become numb to sorrow, then you limit yourself to the joy in life. Avoiding pain limits how alive we must be.

The things that break you don’t just hurt you, but they make you capable of Mo'...

...Mo' joy, Mo' love and Mo' meaning.

Take a day like today. I put an eighteen down for the high this afternoon, but the wind is going to make it feel minus eighteen. On a day like today with the cold biting wind, the quote works because it doesn't bullshit.

Winter doesn’t apologize and people who have lived through enough winters understand that endurance itself becomes a kind of quiet strength. Cold days make us enjoy the warm days mo' betta and sorrow makes joy ignite our soul.

Enough with the Lebanese philosopher, Khalil Gibran and back to the robust football coach Abe Gibron.

Today is seven-layer dips, roasted beef, spicy chili. A case of Old Style on the back deck staying cold without the help of Coleman cooler. Shots of Sambuca in the garage with the uncles and the cousins. Smoking cigars and arguing over Payton not scoring in Twenty.

It is Grampa who can remember the Bears' last championship in 1963 and their Superbowl in 1986. Grampa can also remember Coach Gibron singing Three Dog Night on the sideline as the Bears get pummeled by the Redskins.

Stay warm today. Pace yourself with the guacamole and don't forget to Bear Down!

January 17th, 2026

 I didn't like Dylan until the 1990's when Time Out of Mind was released. Today's quote comes from that album.

“Yesterday everything was going too fast, today it’s moving too slow.”

That is an honest middle age truth. When we are busy, we want relief. When we finally slow down, we wonder where the momentum went. That tension never really goes away, we just get better at recognizing it.

Stay warm this weekend...

January 16th, 2026

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

January 15th, 2026

 The middle of January