September 3rd, 2026

 

    Friendship will take us under the goalpost… I wrote those words to an old friend last night.

    They aren't Shakespearean and they probably aren't grammatically correct, but he knew exactly what I meant. Just a typical JumboLove saying pulled from a big booty.

     At sixty, friendship looks a hell of a lot different than it did at twenty. Back then, friends were the guys you went drinking with, went to Sox games with, chased girls with, stayed out late with and occasionally helped make some very questionable decisions.

   We thought those were the important moments. Turns out, they weren't. The important moments came later.

      Divorces, parents dying, kids growing up, careers changing, friends getting sick, people we loved disappearing from our lives...

       …And that strange realization that there are more miles behind us than there are ahead of us.

     That is when you discover who your friends really are. They don't necessarily fix anything and sometimes they can't. They just stay in the huddle.

     They listen to the same story for the fifth time. They call when they haven't heard from you. They remember your Oldman. They know your kids' names. They can make you laugh when there isn't much worth laughing about and when you have taken about all the hits you can take, they put an arm around you and help move you a few more yards downfield.

     Maybe that's what I meant last night. Life is one hell of a long football game. None of us gets through four quarters without getting knocked on our ass a few times.

    When the clock finally starts winding down, I don't think it will matter much how many points we scored. It will matter who was still in the huddle.

      And maybe, if we're lucky...

                    …friendship will take us under the goalpost.

September 2nd, 2026

 

     At 11:30 last night, three Riverside police officers knocked on my door. They woke me up and asked about the well-being of my son. Someone George knew online had called the police because George threatened to take his life.

    I opened his bedroom door and found George was asleep. He startled awake when I walked in. He was fine and I was pissed.

    Because once you say something like that, people have to take you seriously. Tuesday night became Wednesday morning sitting in an emergency room while my autistic son was evaluated.

       The ER was filled with tired nurses, stressed doctors, people in pain, crying babies and frightened families…

                                … and there I sat, pissed off at George.

   All of this because he had been ghosted by an online friend. I’m just an old man, but I don't understand this shit.

    How did we go from being social together to being social misfits? We met friends at school, at church, at work, in the tavern or at the ballpark.

   Today, your best friend might be a made-up name in a chat room whom you have never actually met. I don't understand that crap, but I don't have to.

    I have to understand George. Autism already makes it difficult for him to express what he is feeling. Add a world where friendships begin and end through words on a screen and something that seems ridiculous to me doesn't feel ridiculous to him.

    I've lost friends. I've been dumped. Hell, my wife cheated on me. I never threatened to kill myself, but that is my measuring stick and not George's.

 

       …And somewhere during my long night/early morning, my anger ran headfirst into gratitude. Because today, September 2nd, is Look for Charlie's Star Day.

     Charlie was the son of a friend of mine. Charlie’s family doesn’t get the chance to see him every day. They only see him when they look up to heaven.

   His parents do not have the luxury of being pissed off at their son this morning. They can't open Charlie's bedroom door and find him sleeping. Charlie’s parents didn’t drive him home from the hospital, but I was able to drive George home.

   There are parents who have lost children to suicide, overdoses and car accidents who would give everything they own for one more stupid decision. One more argument. One more chance to be pissed off. 

    Instead of silently driving their child home from the hospital, they drove to a funeral home to make arrangements. I drove home with George.

              That is the lesson from last night.

     George told us he never intended to hurt himself. It was something stupid that he said during a painful moment, but somebody online didn't know that.

      Somebody cared enough to call, and three Riverside police showed up in the Divorced Dad District. Then the paramedics showed up. Then the ambulance ride to the hospital. Doctors and nurses evaluated him, and George didn't fall through the cracks.

     In a world where we spend so much time talking about everything that is broken, last night the system worked. Someone took a young man's words seriously and this morning he is back in his bed.

      My anger will go away. I'm heading to work on about ninety minutes of sleep, and I'll survive that too.

     Because I have something Charlie's family would give anything to have. I get to be pissed off at my son today.

     Sometime tonight you Chalkheads, look up. Find Charlie's Star and tell him that you love him.

September 1st, 2026

 

           We have reached the ’Ber months of 2026.

     It might be the meteorological start of autumn, but September is beginning with a Gold Bond alert.

      Why in the hell would I quote Scotty Fitz talking about the crispness of fall when it is going to be in the nineties today?

  The Grabber section has three important dates on our autumnal schedule.

      One is the day we dress up like ghosts and vampires. One is the day we remember the veterans who fought for the liberty and freedom we woke up with this morning. The last is the day we give thanks for everything we have and the opportunity to argue with relatives about politics and football while somebody asks who wants another piece of pie.

      So, reach into the sweater drawer and pull out the gusto and astonishment. The sweater can stay there for now.

              Powder up, Chalkheads. September has arrived.

August 31st, 2026

 

     There is something satisfying about finishing a month on a Monday. Mondays are supposed to be beginnings but today happens to be an ending.

    August gets one last day before we flip the calendar and September takes over. Summer has not officially finished, but we can see the finish line from here.

T.S. Eliot wrote, “To make an end is to make a beginning.”

     That is a clever way to look at today. We spend too much time waiting for the perfect moment to start something. The first of the month, Monday mornings, New Year's Day, and our birthday.

    Today gives us both. It is Monday, and it is the last day of the month.

Finish something.

         September arrives tomorrow morning.

We do not have to drag everything from August into September. Some things deserve to be carried forward, and some things are better left behind.

              ..And some things need to be finished.

       

     Give August a proper goodbye today because tomorrow morning we get thirty brand-new days.

       The Cubs and Sox having winning records at the end of August, W I N N I N G!

August 30th, 2026

 

       A rainy Sunday morning followed by a cloudy, humid afternoon.

    I am not sure it is perfect weather for toasting marshmallows, but today is Toasted Marshmallow Day, so we work with what we have.

      Recently, I chalked about being a latchkey kid like so many of us Gen Xers. I also chalked about how, when I was a little boy, whenever I tried something for the first time, I didn’t say I tried it. I said I invented it.

    Well, I remember the day I invented toasting marshmallows over the stove.

I was living in my first apartment in Oak Park. I bought a bag of jumbo marshmallows at the Jewels up the block and carried them back to my little apartment.

    When I moved out, my parents had used the occasion to clean out their kitchen drawers, so among my new possessions was an old roasting fork.

Perfect. I stuck a marshmallow on the end of it, turned up the gas burner and started roasting.

    I toasted about half a dozen, sat down in front of the television I had just bought at Polk Brothers, cracked open an Old Style, and watched the Sox game.

     It was pretty damn good. I was living the dream.

    The caramelized sugar and gooey softness of a toasted marshmallow went surprisingly well with the kraeusened-water-brewed pilsner.

             At least the first few did.

   After about a six-pack and a dozen marshmallows, I discovered something else I had not thought about when I moved into my first apartment.

          I needed Alka-Seltzer.

   I couldn't just walk over to my Oldman's medicine cabinet anymore and grab a couple. There are certain moments when you realize you are truly on your own.

           That was one of mine.

    So, enjoy the down day the weather has given us on this last Sunday of August 2026.

     August is leaving us hot and humid, dragging September through the door wearing the same damn clothes.

      Fortunately, my Oldman had the foresight to throw a bottle of Gold Bond into that box of kitchen appliances and assorted crap he gave me when I moved across town.

     I have had that magical powder in every bathroom cabinet I have owned since that first apartment many years ago.

       Some lessons from your Oldman take a while to appreciate. Others become apparent the first humid day of September.

      So, Gold Bond up this week, you gorgeous Chalkheads.

Keep your nooks and crannies dry and unchaffed.

         …And if you are going to invent toasted marshmallows over the stove, stop before the second six-pack.

 

August 29th, 2026

       “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” — William Shakespeare
   Billy Shakes sure as hell understood this one.
      Here we are on the last Saturday of August, and another summer is getting ready to get packed away and added to the history book.
           That got me thinking.
     There are only 24 summers between this one and the summer of 2050.
 Put it that way and 2050 doesn't sound as far away as it did five minutes ago.
   We tend to think of summers as an unlimited commodity. Another one will come around next year and bring another baseball season and another Fourth of July.
      But Shakespeare had it right. Summer's lease is short.
 That is why these final August weekends feel different. The sun sets a little earlier. The shadows get a little longer. Football starts creeping into the conversation. School is back in session, and Labor Day is sitting on the doorstep.
    Summer doesn't slam the screen door when it leaves, it quietly slips away.
   So do not spend this last Saturday of August worrying about September.
Sit outside, grill something and listen to the ballgame.
   Take the long way home this afternoon. Have dinner with somebody that you love and watch the sunset together.
   Because someday we will reach the summer of 2050 and we will probably wonder how in the hell those 24 summers went by so fast.
     Do not count the summers you have left, make the summers you have count.

August 28th, 2026

 

      Friday is here, but the week isn't over yet. There are still a few hours left to finish.

   Walk into the weekend knowing you emptied the tank. August is nearly in the rearview mirror, and September is waiting around the corner with another clean page.

   We don't get to rewrite how the month started, but we sure as hell get a say in how it ends.

    Finish the week strong, enjoy the weekend and end August with gusto and astonishment...

August 27th, 2026

 

     Nine years ago, I bought a chalkboard because I was trying to make a new place feel like home. That was all it was going to be.

   My marriage had ended. The Shepkids were coming to Dad's new home, and I wanted something familiar waiting for them. Something that said this wasn't just some empty place where their Oldman happened to live. This was our place, too.

            So I hung up a chalkboard like the one back at their mother's house. 

    I started writing the date, the weather, schedules, and the sunrise and sunset times. Then came a quote. Maybe something funny or something worth thinking about. Just a few motivational words in chalk before the day got started.

    Eventually I took a picture and put it on Facebook and two dozen people liked it.

    Today marks the ninth anniversary of that first post and somewhere along the way, this family ritual became something considerably bigger. I have chalked 2,872 Morning Chalkboards since that first post.

   There is a Morning Chalkboard blog that gets close to 2,000 hits a day. There are people I have never met who read it with their morning coffee. Some come for the quote, some for the grabber section and some for whatever story I have decided needs telling that morning.

     The Chalkboard wasn't created with a business plan, a marketing strategy or an audience in mind. It was created by a divorced dad trying to make his children feel at home.

     Now we begin Year Ten and I want this one to be special.

I want to pull it all together and finish the decade strong. Make people laugh occasionally and think a little more. I want to help Chalkheads realize that astonishment, faith and gusto will always put a smile on the sun.

     When August 27, 2027 arrives, maybe I will have something I never imagined nine years ago… 

    A decade of Chalkboards. Ten years of mornings. Ten years of stories. Ten years of trying to find something worth writing before the rest of the world wakes up and maybe, finally, a book.

    Funny thing about chalk. It is supposed to be temporary, but somehow, this stuck.

     

August 26th, 2026

 
     Something occurred to me yesterday after hearing that Dolly Parton had died. I lost another little piece of my mom.
    My mom loved Dolly Parton. When I was a little boy, Dolly seemed to be everywhere. She was on our television, on the radio, on the movie screen and in my memories of Dolly was my mom.
   That is the funny thing about getting older. Television shows, songs, movies, famous people, restaurants, buildings… they all become little storage boxes for our memories.
   Then one of them disappears, and suddenly you are not only mourning what disappeared, you are remembering who was standing beside you when it was still here.
    Yesterday, for me, that was Mom and because I believe heaven works the way I pray it does, I had another thought that made me smile.
     Yesterday my Ma finally got to meet Dolly. I assume she told her how much she enjoyed her while some chubby little kid was running around the house getting into something he wasn't supposed to.
     That brought me back to Dolly's quote on today's Chalkboard:
                    “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
  Maybe finding out who we are is not a great revelation that arrives one morning. Maybe we find ourselves slowly. Through our parents, our children, our friends, our mentors. The people we love and the people we have lost.
   The people whose example quietly gets stuck inside us and then, eventually, we have to decide what we are going to do with all of it.
       Dolly knew who she was.
 She came from almost nothing, became one of the most famous women in the world, and somehow always remained Dolly. She also spent a good part of her life helping other people. Through literacy programs, disaster relief and causes that often had nothing to do with putting her name in bright lights.
     Most of us will never have Dolly Parton money. We don’t need it. What we have are opportunities.
      An opportunity to help people in our lives that are having a crisis without announcing to the world that we helped them. To make another person's stay on this planet just a little bit better. That is part of finding out who we are.
     Every day gives us another chance to answer the question. When my turn is over, I would like the answer to be pretty simple. He was a pretty decent character. He wasn't a jagoff. He noticed people. He gave a damn and once in a while, somebody's day was a little better because he happened to be there.
     So today, Chalkheads, find out who you are and then do it on purpose.
            
          …And somewhere up there
          Ma, if you did meet Dolly yesterday, tell her thanks for me and all you got to do is smile that smile…

August 25th, 2026

 Who in the hell decides what our potential is?

      Here is a question that starts showing up somewhere around sixty.

             Did I live up to my potential?

                   … And I have another question.

            Who the hell made the scale for living up to our potential??

   Who decides what our potential was supposed to look like in the first place?

       A bigger house? More money? The marriage that lasted? A corner office? Kids who never screwed up? A retirement account big enough that the financial planner kisses your ass when you see him?

      Because if that is the scoreboard, an awful lot of people are walking toward retirement convinced they somehow lost the game.

        Especially my generation, GenX.

   We were the kids who came home from school, let ourselves into the house, did our homework and made dinner for our single parent.

    We grew up having five television channels. We were worried the Soviets might blow us up before dinner. If you wanted to talk to somebody you had to call their house and risk getting their father on the phone.

     We watched factories close. We watched our neighborhoods change. We watched our parents work thirty years for the same company because there was supposed to be a pension waiting at the other end.

        Then some jagoff changed the playing field.

    Companies downsized, jobs moved overseas, and pensions disappeared. Technology showed up and told half the workforce that everything they had learned for twenty years was obsolete.

     Then came the dot-com crash, then September 11^th, then years of war and terrorism. Then 2008 knocked some of us back to square one. Then smartphones arrived and everybody became available twenty-four hours a day. Then a pandemic shut down the goddamn planet.

      That is one tough road trip to take, and somewhere along the way we made decisions.

    Some were decent and some were fucking lousy.

    We married the wrong person or stayed too long at the dead-end job. Maybe we ended up quitting the right job. We bought the wrong stock, or we didn't buy the right stock. We didn't call somebody back. We didn't show up for lunch, or we didn't tell somebody we loved them.

    Wait until Monday.

      Wait until January.

         Wait until the kids got older.

             Wait until things settled down.

         … And suddenly we are sixty fucking years old and things don’t settle down.

    That is the part nobody explained to us when we were thirty. Time doesn't announce itself when it leaves. There isn’t a guy standing by my bathroom door saying, “Jumbo, just so you know, you are never going to get 1997 back.”

      Procrastination is probably responsible for more unrealized potential than failure ever was. Failure at least means you swung the bat. Procrastination leaves the bat sitting on your shoulder.

        I think we have been looking at potential all wrong. Potential isn't one destination. It is a thousand different trajectories.

    At twenty-five your potential might have been to become a writer at the Sun-Times. At forty it might have been saving a marriage. At fifty it might have been becoming a better person. At sixty it might be repairing a friendship, writing the book, helping your kids find their way, mentoring somebody younger or finally becoming comfortable with the guy staring back in the bathroom mirror.

     We get fewer chances as we get older. That is just the mathematics of time, but fewer isn't none. Maybe potential was never about becoming everything we planned on. Maybe it was about becoming something useful with whatever remained in front of us.

   There is still another conversation, another opportunity, another sunrise, another idea, and another wrong that can still be made right.

      Potential doesn't have a time clock.  There is no foreman punching your card at sixty-five. There is no closing bell that rings and announces that whatever you were going to become, you are wearing it. At sixty, potential changes from accumulation to contribution.

      As long as you are here, the trajectory can still change.

   Maybe not dramatically. Maybe just a few degrees, but anybody who has ever looked at a map knows that a few degrees over enough distance can take you someplace completely different.

      Someday, when people talk about us, they probably won't spend much time discussing whether we maximized our potential. They will remember what we did with it. Because in the end, our potential isn't just part of our story. It becomes part of our legacy.

  

          It is Tuesday morning and it never looked so good. 

             I’m already in, in a daydream…

August 24th, 2026

          SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE DAMN GAME.

    Thirteen days ago, 40,000 people stood inside Comiskey Park and offered one another the sign of peace. A Catholic priest stood on the field as the White Sox celebrated Pope Leo XIV, a South Side kid and Sox fan who somehow wound up succeeding Saint Peter.

     People turned to strangers and said to each other, “Peace be with you” which received the reply, “And also with you.”

              I watched it and cried.

      Yesterday, in the same ballpark, a bunch of drunken jagoffs were tumbling over seats in the upper deck trying to beat the hell out of each other.

     There was another fight earlier in the week at Wrigley between Cubs and Sox fans.

        This isn't a new thing.

  Ballpark fights have been around forever, and Comiskey has had more than its share of notorious ones. We once had a father and son run onto the field and attack the opposing team's first-base coach.

          …And spare me the demographic explanations.

     White guys fight, Black guys fight, Hispanic guys fight, women fight, Cubs fans fight and Sox fans fight.

         The common denominator is assholes.

    Usually, a couple assclowns fortified with twelve-dollar beers, but I think there is something else going on.

    We have turned the ballpark into a three-hour carnival where apparently nobody can be left alone with a baseball game anymore.

     Music blasting, video boards flashing, contests, promotions, kiss cams, dancing and screaming. The billboards have statistics covering every square inch of available real estate.

        Silence is now considered a crisis.

    I want to go backward. Give me the organ. Give me Gene Honda. Give me a Dixieland band playing underneath the stands. Give me fireworks when a Sox player hits a home run.

          That is it.   

I do not need Grand Theft Auto music rattling the upper deck between pitches. I do not need some jackass dancing on the scoreboard. I do not need to know a hitter's launch angle, exit velocity and OPS against left-handed relief pitchers on Tuesdays after 8:15.

    I just want to watch the damn game. Bring back the Andy Frains standing at the end of the aisle. Hell, bring back a dress code. Not jackets, fedoras and ties. Just dress like you are going someplace where other human beings will be present.

   Grown men should not wear tank tops to a baseball game. Women should not dress like they are hooking after the game.

    Have a hot dog. Eat some Cracker Jack. Drink a couple beers. Buy the nachos and keep a scorecard.

    Talk baseball with the guy sitting next to you and when you get up to take a piss, wait until the play is over before climbing over twelve people.

            When did we stop doing that?

    There was an etiquette to going to a baseball game. You learned it from your Oldman, and he learned it from his.

     Baseball doesn't need constant stimulation. That is one of the reasons I love it. It has pauses, it breathes, it gives you time to think.

      That is what we are afraid of now.

   Thirteen days ago, 40,000 people at Comiskey Park stopped everything long enough to turn toward a stranger and wish him peace.

Think about that.

No politics.

No Cubs.

No Sox.

No race.

No bullshit.

     Just one human being looking another in the eye, Peace be with you.

  Instead of another video board, another promotion and another speaker blasting music into the upper deck, we ought to try a little more of that and if that doesn't work?

     Bring back the Andy Frains and sit down and watch the damn game.

Okay Chalkheads, sorry to bitch and moan on a Monday Morning….

      …. Play Ball!

Dear Old Cathedral for the Funeral Mass of Coach Tom O'Brien.

 

https://youtu.be/uYGid6k18zQ?si=AgU0xS-kat1AdGzv

August 23rd, 2026

 

        As a chubby little kid in the early 1970s, I was quite the inventor.

  Not because I was particularly brilliant. I just used the wrong words for things.

    Whenever I did something for the first time, instead of saying I got my first Wacky Pack or had my first Kayo, I would announce that I had invented it.

      This drove my Oldman absolutely crazy.

         “I invented Wacky Packs and KayO’s today.”

    “How the hell did you invent Wacky Packs Moose?”

       “When we drove over to White Hen.”

 Perfectly reasonable explanation if you were five-year-old me.

     I invented my First Communion. I invented Saturday morning cartoons. I invented shopping malls. I invented those new CTA cars with the windows that didn't open. I invented Elton John and the Beatles. 

    I invented popping a wheelie on my bike. Never before accomplished by a five-year-old kid on a Schwinn.

    I even invented mixing Cap'n Crunch Peanut-Butter with Honeycomb. Actually, I did come up with that one. 

    I invented putting a baseball card near the spokes, so my Schwinn sounded like a Kawasaki. Sorry to the millions of American kids who thought they came up with that one themselves. It was me.

            … And then there was ice cream.

    For the first few years of my life, as far as I knew there were two flavors, chocolate and vanilla. Then my world expanded.

Mint ice cream? Me.

New York cherry? Me again.

Pralines and cream? You guessed it. Another John Shepley invention.

    The best part was that I would announce these breakthroughs in front of my Oldman's work buddies. They would scratch their heads, look over at Dad and ask some variation of…

        “What the f**k is wrong with your kid?”

     Don Shepley had his answer ready.

     “My son is the next goddamn Einstein. Lord help us when he takes a jet somewhere when he gets older. He will have invented air travel. He already thinks he found the Illinois Central Railroad.”

     Thankfully, I grew out of my Thomas Edison phase before I heard the lyrics I chalked this morning. Otherwise, Blue Öyster Cult might owe me some royalties.

     Enjoy figuring that one out, Chalkheads. And enjoy the earworm when you do.

       Which brings me to today's other important subject. The Cuban sandwich.

     I didn't discover the Cubano until sometime in the last ten years or so and, for the record, I did not invent it, but whoever did deserves my respect.

    Pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard pressed together on Cuban bread until the whole magnificent creation is hot, crispy and gooey.

         That is what I call a pretty damn good samich.

   It is probably never going to become a staple on the Chicago food pyramid. Around here, the gyros, hot dog and Italian beef have pretty well staked out their territory, but every once in a while, even a Chicago guy needs to wander off the reservation.

    There is a Cuban joint on the other side of town, and I'm thinking today might be a good day to walk over and grab myself a Cubano.

        So go out there and have yourself a fanfuckingtastic Sunday Funday.

    Turn Blue Öyster Cult up to eleven on the volume knob.

      Grab yourself a Cuban sandwich and if you happen to try something today that you have never done before, feel free to tell everybody you invented it.

       Five-year-old Jumbo would understand completely.

August 22nd, 2026

 

   I rarely get political on the Chalkboard, and I don't intend to start today.

        Election Day is 72 days away, and something has been bothering me.

  Our political parties seem determined to stretch themselves farther and farther toward their respective edges. Somewhere in between are conservatives, moderates and liberals who don't recognize themselves in all the shouting anymore.

       Maybe fixing that is bigger than any one of us.

   My Oldman always told me the quiet guy in the crowd was usually the toughest guy in the room and the smartest as well.

The loud voices were usually mealy mouths who had never been punched in the nose or had never come up with an original thought of their own.

   That was my Oldman. A little rough around the edges, but there was some wisdom underneath it.

     Anybody can shout. Anybody can repeat somebody else's talking points. It takes considerably more strength to listen, think for yourself and occasionally admit the other guy might have a point. Not everything requires an argument.

       Certainly not one worth losing a friendship over.

  We have become awfully good at sorting one another into teams. Red or blue. Right or left. Us or them, but the person across the table is still your brother, your neighbor, your old friend, the guy you went to school with or the woman who brought a casserole over when your family needed one.

          Politics shouldn't erase that.

    So over the next 72 days, read, listen and think for yourself. Question your own side once in a while. Decide what you believe instead of borrowing somebody else's outrage.

    Then do your talking in two quiet places. A church pew and an election booth. Say what needs saying and pray in the first. Cast your vote in the second.

   Then walk out the door, shake somebody's hand, buy somebody a beer, listen to some music, watch a ballgame, call an old friend and get back to the considerably more important business of living.

      The election will come and go. Our lives won't wait for it.

  So reach for the gusto and astonishment, you gorgeous Chalkheads.

         There is still plenty of both out there for all of us…

August 21st, 2026

 

     By August 21, you can see what is happening just by looking at the clock.    

  Sunset has slipped all the way back to 7:41 PM. We are losing roughly two and a half minutes of daylight every day now. Look up towards the sun and look down at your shadow. It is getting longer.

 There are still summer nights left, but they are starting to become precious.

   That feels like a good Chalkboard thought…

    …We spend half the summer acting as though it will last forever, and the other half wondering where the hell it went.

      Maybe that is true about more than summer.

            Enjoy the day you are standing in.

August 20th, 2026

 

     There is something old school about radio.

   You don’t watch it. You can’t scroll through it, and you don’t have an algorithm reading your mind. You turn the dial, find the voice you know, and let that voice keep you company.

    I have a radio in every room of my home. I suppose that tells you something about me.

   For generations, Chicago has been one hell of a radio town. Ballgames, agriculture reports, weather, traffic, music, news and those comforting voices coming out of a speaker while we drove to work, sat on the back porch or fell asleep at night.

    Some of my earliest memories have a radio playing somewhere in the background.

    WLS-AM got me through the seventies before I discovered the FM dial. Before school in the morning there was Wally Phillips, who would play the Ellery Queen Minute Mystery. My mom and I would try to figure out the murderer before it was time to leave. Later there was Orion Samuelson giving us the grain and livestock prices. Funny how life works. Back then they were just numbers coming out of the radio. Eventually, those numbers became my livelihood.

     I listened to Indiana Pacer games with my Gramma. Sitting at the table playing Kings Corners and eating warm zucchini bread.

   I fondly remember sitting with my Oldman on a Saturday afternoon in the Dadilac, eating White Castles and listening to Jack Benny shows with Chuck Schaden.

   Sunday afternoons had their own soundtrack. I sat on the porch with Dad while Dick Buckley played jazz records. Those Sunday afternoons probably have something to do with why jazz still sounds like home to me.

      And sports?

     Give me the radio.

I'll take the baseball game on the radio over television any day, hockey too. A good radio announcer doesn't merely tell you what's happening. He paints the damn thing. You can see the runner taking his lead from first. You can hear the crowd building before the puck hits the back of the net. The best broadcasters make you feel as though you are sitting at the game without ever showing you a picture.

        Maybe that is what I love most about radio.

   It asks something of you. Television gives you the picture. The internet gives you everything at once. Radio gives you a voice, a few sounds and enough empty space to build the rest yourself. Your imagination has to participate.

    Mark Twain supposedly said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

    I don't know how many thousands of mornings in my life have gotten started the same way, with a radio playing somewhere nearby.

   From Wally Phillips and Ellery Queen before school, to Orion and Max covering the farmers, Pacers games with Gramma, jazz with Dad, baseball in the summertime and radios scattered around my home today. That little box has been keeping me company for most of my life.

     The voices change, the stations change and the people sitting beside us eventually change too.

        …But somehow you turn that dial, hear an old song or the crack of a bat, and for just a moment they are all sitting there with you again.

Television may give us pictures. The internet gives us everything, but radio leaves just enough room for your imagination and memories.

        

          What is your favorite radio memory Chalkheads?