August 2nd, 2026

 

    I met a kid early during my exile in Indianapolis. He was two years older than me and, on the surface, not someone I would have expected to hang around with as a seventh grader.

  He was a freshman at the nearby Catholic high school, a scrawny kid with long jet-black hair. From the moment I met him, I thought he was kind of a jagoff. He was standoffish and reluctant to let me join the neighborhood games.

  As the years passed, I realized I had misjudged him. He wasn’t unfriendly. He was simply quiet and introverted.

  Our friendship probably worked because we balanced each other out. He was low-key, and I was the loudmouth.

   The more I got to know him, the more similarities we discovered. We were both Illinois kids transplanted to Indianapolis because that was where divorced families landed at the time.

   We both worshipped the Chicago Bears, Dick Butkus, and Walter Payton. He was a Cub fan who forgot more about the Northsiders than I’ll ever know.

   He had three older sisters. The youngest had just had a baby out of wedlock when I moved into the neighborhood. She was still very protective for her little brother.

   His mum was the neighborhood nanny. She was from England, a war bride who followed her GI husband across the Atlantic to Freeport, Illinois. She spoke with a beautiful Manchester accent and made the finest Sunday roast I have ever eaten.

             She became my British mum almost immediately.

   She took a liking to her son’s loud, extroverted new friend, and I adored her right back.

   During my years in exile, our friendship grew. My buddy was good at everything.

   He was the best basketball player on the block. He threw a wicked Wiffle ball curve and launched home runs over the tennis court fence. Despite his size, he could tackle with the best of them.

   We spent countless afternoons playing Smear the Queer on a steep hill. You not only had to avoid getting your snot knocked loose. You had to run uphill while everyone chasing you had the downhill advantage.

   In the summer, we would sweet-talk the lifeguards into letting us “rock the pool.”

 With the help of everyone in our gang, we would leap in, jump out, and fire off cannonballs and belly flops until the little neighborhood pool looked like Disneyland’s wave pool.

      We also got drunk together for the first time.

    His older sister bought us a bottle of Jack Daniel’s when I was a freshman and he was a junior.

         He got absolutely ripped.

   I walked him home, propped him against his front door, knocked, and sprinted behind the bushes.

   When his mum opened the door, he fell face first into the house and landed in a puddle on the linoleum.

         She looked straight toward my hiding place.

    “Sheppey! I see you, Sheppey! What have you bloody done to my son?”

  She was the only person who ever called me “Sheppey.” Hearing it in her English accent always made me smile.

         Well… maybe not that night.

     We also made out with a few girls together. Between his long black hair and my beautiful baby blues, we did pretty well for ourselves. Mostly Broad Ripple and Chatard girls, but the occasional North Central and Cathedral girl joined the fun.

      We gained our carnal knowledge together while Bob Seger, Cheap Trick, and .38 Special jammed in the background. Those were the years when we thought life would always be simple and free.

         One memory stands above all the others. Super Bowl XX.

   His mum cooked us one of her magnificent Sunday roasts. As the Bears finally won their first Super Bowl, we celebrated over Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, and gravy.

   To this day, I can’t think about that championship without tasting Yorkshire pudding.

      Eventually my exile ended, and I moved back to Chicagoland.

  For years afterward we wore out I-65 visiting each other. We made the trip well into our twenties and early thirties.

    When he married, I had the honor of standing beside him as his best man.

 After he got married, our visits gradually stopped. His wife didn't appreciated the kinds of things we always did together. Sporting events, rock concerts, having fun and booze. Life has a way of changing priorities, and ours slowly drifted in different directions.

   Still, whenever I drove to Indianapolis to visit my mom, I made it a point to see him.

            Today is his birthday.

   Even though our friendship probably reached its peak forty years ago, he remains a huge part of who I became. Some people help shape our lives without ever realizing it.

         My old friend is one of those people. Happy Birthday, Gallipoli.

 

     August began with a soaking rain but today looks like one of those lush summer Sundays. Get your gusto up, Chalkheads. Astonishing things have a funny way of appearing when you decide to go looking for them.

August 1st, 2026

 
There is something about this Oscar Wilde quote that has me a bit confused this morning.
          "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
           I have been trying to figure out where I fit in that sentence.
  The truth be told, I have spent a fair amount of time in the gutter. Some of it I earned. Some of it just happened.
   I have made enough bad decisions to fill Soldier Field, and life has handed me a few I never ordered. Divorce, deaths, financial worries and raising three kids when I wasn't sure I was qualified to raise myself.
    If life were a baseball game, I have struck out enough times to know what the walk back to the dugout feels like.
       Maybe that is why this quote sticks with me.
          The older I get, the less interested I am in pretending the gutter isn't there.
   Youth has a funny way of bullshitting us that one day we all arrive someplace where everything finally makes sense. Then the decades pile up and you discover life isn't a destination at all. It is mostly patching holes in the roof while admiring the sunset.
    Joni Mitchell sang about looking at life from both sides. Maybe that is what age gives us. You can look down and see every mistake you have made, every scar you earned, and every disappointment that still whispers your name.
          Or...
           You can look up.
   At your son laughing at a dad joke.
  At your daughter rolling her eyes but still giving you a hug.
  At an old friend calling just to check in.
  At the first cup of coffee before the Chalkheads wake up.
  At the sound of rain on the roof.
  At the crack of a baseball bat on a summer evening.
  At a church bell on Sunday morning.
  At a cardinal sitting on the fence.
  At the first page of a new book.
  At someone who believed in you.
  At another chance to make today count.
            Funny thing about the stars...
                              …They have been there the whole time.
   Maybe they aren't there to help us escape the gutter. Maybe they are there to remind us that the gutter isn't the whole story. That the gutter doesn’t define us.
    August is here and it starts with rain in Chicagoland. Holding an umbrella doesn’t keep me from finding gusto and astonishment. It only kept me from chalking the sun with a smile.

July 31st, 2026

 

"I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face."  Maya Angelou

  

    When we were kids, making friends was easy. You sit next to someone in school, end up on the same Little League team, or ride the same bus and before long you are spending every Saturday together.

          Then adulthood happens.

    We get busy, we become careful or we convince ourselves that everyone already has enough friends, but they do not.

      This morning's chalkboard got me thinking about all the chapters of my life and all the people who wandered into them.

    I started as a Chicago kid. Those neighborhood kids toughened me up. We settled arguments in alleys, on the gridiron and at the park. We learned that life was not always fair, and neither were the games. Looking back, they were preparing me for the world long before I realized it.

   Then my mom moved me to Indianapolis. Suddenly I was the kid with the funny accent. They laughed at my Chicagonese while I slowly picked up their Hoosier twang. Before long, the strangers became teammates, classmates, and lifelong friends. Funny how that works.

   The Oak Park years were different. Those were the years of young adulthood. We played softball all summer and drank Old Style afterward. We stood up in each other's weddings. We celebrated babies being born. We watched our parents grow older. Now we are all looking over the horizon, wondering how retirement arrived so quickly. Just yesterday we had to sneak into Fio's or Time Out Lounge

           Then came my years west of Mannheim Road.

   Those friends watched my family grow and they watched it fall apart. They were there for birthday parties, backyard cookouts, and Saint Cletus football. I found out who my friends were when life quit following the script.

      Then came Riverside and the Divorced Dad District.

   I arrived carrying more baggage than furniture. Somehow another group of strangers welcomed me into their lives. Invited me to their pool party, the block party and their dad band jams. They didn't know they were helping rebuild someone. They just invited me in. They became neighbors, walking partners, cigar friends and people I now can't imagine not knowing.

     Along the way there were colleagues who started as voices across a trading floor or acronyms on a trading jacket. Some of those people became dear friends.    

    There was a rugby club out in Lemont that taught me far more than how to play a game. They taught me to sweep the sheds, to do the small jobs without being asked, and that every person has value regardless of where they come from or what path brought them there. Rugby has a way of stripping away titles, giving you a role and leaving only character.

    When I look back at sixty years, I realize my life hasn't just been measured by birthdays or addresses. It's been measured by my friendships in….

Chicago, Indianapolis, Oak Park, West of Mannheim and Riverside.

    Every stop left me with friends I still carry and friends who still carry me. Every one of them was once a stranger. Maya Angelou was right; a friend really may be waiting behind a stranger's face.

      It is the last day of July. Labor Day is only thirty-eight days away and summer is beginning its slow turn toward autumn.

         Go head into this weekend with a little gusto. Leave room for a little astonishment. Keep an umbrella nearby and do not be afraid to introduce yourself.

       You never know who might become part of your next chapter.

July 30th, 2026

            "They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm."
     That it is a powerful line. The idea is that people who have lived through hardship, danger, or a constant shitshow often become restless when life finally becomes peaceful. The calm feels unfamiliar because they have grown accustomed to operating in crisis mode.
   The quote is by Dorothy Parker. She was writing about the addiction to emotional turbulence that comes with love. Ms. Parker missed the storm because calm felt empty.
        What I feel is completely different. I don't think the storm ever really ends.
  People tell me life will finally slow down as I get older. The children will become adults and find their voices. Retirement will arrive, and there will come a day when I no longer listen for the bids and offers.
      No more, "Dad, can you make me something to eat?"
      No more early morning fast markets or late nights at the computer working option orders.
       Truth be told, I kind of like making a sandwich for George, a pizza for Fritz, or Mickey Mouse pancakes for Hazel. I find joy in hearing loud chewing over sibling bickering.
     I enjoy buying low and selling high. I like having an opening bell that brings havoc. I get a strong sense of fulfilment when I get my customers the best fills.
          I guess what I am saying is that I enjoy the storm.
         Maybe that is because I don't see it as a storm anymore.
    Almost forty years on the trading floor or a trading desk has taught me that markets eventually settle. Sixty years of living has taught me that good days outnumber bad ones. Wounds heal, even if they leave scars.
     I have also learned that grief is a lot like laundry. It piles up in the hamper until it feels like a burden you will never get through. Then one day, the last pair of socks is folded and put away, and the basket is empty again. Not forever, just for a little while.
    Maybe that is the mistake we make. We think peace means the absence of storms, but it doesn't.
     Peace is knowing which storms no longer frighten you…
              ….and maybe that is what growing older really is. Not waiting for the weather to change but becoming a better sailor.
 
     August is almost here and today is National Chili Dog Day. My go to chili dog these days is Bishop’s Chili out in Westmont. I used to go to the original one at 18^th and Damen with my Oldman. They are both gone now. The location out on Cass Avenue and the Shepkids are a great replacement.
             Gusto, astonishment and extra onion on top.

This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves

Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.

I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;

They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again...

       Dorothy Parker, from her poem "Fair Weather," published in the New York World on January 20, 1928, and later included in her poetry collection Sunset Gun.

July 29th, 2026

 

     “Reconciliation does not erase what happened. It simply refuses to let what happened have the final word.”

     The word reconciliation came to me yesterday while I was on my morning conference call to heaven. I was halfway through a Hail Mary when that word started bouncing around my noggin like a loose hubcap rolling across Cermak Road.

          Reconciliation. Reconciliation. Reconciliation. Reconciliation.

    I told the Virgin Mary, “Reconciliation is tomorrow’s Chalkboard.” She did not object, so here we are.

   We Catholics are lucky that we have the confession booth in the back of the church. We can drag our sorry asses into a confessional carrying enough guilt to make Saint Basil shake his head.    

    We tell the priest what we did, express our sorrow, accept our penance and receive absolution. Then we walk out feeling as if we just enjoyed a spiritual spa day. Only without the cucumber water and some stranger rubbing seaweed on our backside. Just some Holy water and a couple decades on our rosary beads.

   God gives us a road back to a guilt free life. Though it isn’t a free pass for every jagoff with a clever excuse. You can't take the liberty of bullshitting Papa God. 

   We must examine our conscience, confess honestly and own what we did. Mercy does not pretend that the sin never happened. Mercy tells us that our worst moment does not have to become our permanent identity.

         Once we get done with that, we are square with God.

  It gets tougher when the person we hurt has died. We can’t just call them on the telephone or sit with them at the kitchen table or buy them a beer at the tavern. We cannot look them in the eye and say, “I was wrong, I am sorry” and expect to hear them answer back, “I forgive you.”

    The dead leave us with silence, and silence can be a lousy conversationalist.

We can always bring our regret to God. We can also try and speak to the person through prayer. We can honor them by living differently, and then the reconciliation is no longer with the person who died. It is now between who we are today and the version of ourselves that hurt them when they were still kicking.

     Then there are the living who we must reconcile with. Reconciling with them takes balls and isn't easy.

   You must approach the person you jagged over and admit what you did. A sincere apology cannot contain the word “but.” The minute “but” shows up, the apology puts on a cheap suit and starts selling used cars in Melrose Park.

   You also can’t apologize simply because you got caught. That is not integrity, that is damage control. That is what famous people, the rich and the Smiths out in California can get away with....

           Grabowskis stuck in Cook County don’t have that luxury. A middle class guy has to strap it on and face the problem.

   The person you wronged may forgive you, but they could also tell you to go pound sand. Forgiveness is theirs to give, not ours to demand. Once we have spoken honestly, asked to be forgiven and stopped kicking the can down the road…  

          ...that is when we can wash our hands of the matter.

       Now we have come to the hardest reconciliation of them all, the one with ourselves.

  A priest can tell us God has forgiven us. Another person can tell us they forgive us. Yet we continue punishing ourselves and don't take time to reconcile our own guilt.

    Remorse should teach us. It should humble us, it should change us and make us less likely to repeat our stupid mistakes. Guilt was never meant to move into the spare bedroom in our heads and spend the next thirty years eating our groceries and drinking our Old Styles.

   At some point, we must accept the mercy we keep asking God to provide.

Reconciliation does not change what happened yesterday. It simply prevents yesterday from stealing tomorrow.

    Forgive yourselves Chalkheads, you are too magnificent to muck up your journey with guilt and pain.

    Consider today’s Morning Chalkboard your confessional. For your penance, I want you to look at the Buck full moon tonight and know someone who loves you is looking at the same damn thing…..

July 28th, 2026

 

   I started traveling more in the early 1990s. For my twenty-fifth birthday, my dad bought me a set of heavy canvas Land's End luggage in manly hunter green. My initials, JSS, were embroidered on both pieces. He gave me a tri-fold garment bag and a matching weekender duffel.

        Those bags saw a shit ton of miles.

  They made countless trips to New Orleans. They went to New York, Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Vegas and even London. They were thrown into the trunk for quick weekend trips across the Midwest. They saw overhead bins, baggage compartments, tailgates and hotel closets all over the country.

      A few weeks ago, I dropped them off at Goodwill. I took one last look as they sat in the collection bin. They screamed 1991 as I left them there all alone.

      I hope another JSS stumbles upon them someday. Maybe they will finally make it to Glasgow, Paris, Rome or Jerusalem. They still have a few good trips left in them, but I don't need them anymore.

      I have been well grounded for the last twenty years or so, and the truth is, I like being grounded. I don't need another passport stamp or a new set of luggage these days.

       In today’s quote, Hemingway wasn't really talking about travel anyway.

   He was saying that a change of scenery doesn't create a change of character. You can move to another city, take a different job, start a new relationship or buy a different house…

     … but wherever you go, your habits, fears, regrets and strengths come along for the ride.

    Life changes us whether we want it to or not. We adapt, we mature, we gain wisdom, but I have never believed the answer was somewhere else.

   My mom moved us across Chicagoland and then down to Indianapolis in the span of five years. It didn't improve her life, and it made mine complicated. Watching that taught me you can't outrun your troubles. I have spent my entire adult life within a ten-mile radius in Chicago's western suburbs.

   Once I found the trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade, I never had to search for another career to make my life better. I was fortunate enough to work in one of those magical, romantic places that novels are written about. Every morning I walked into a world most people only knew from Rolling Stone magazine, newspaper stories or the movie Wall Street.

    It was loud, chaotic, competitive and unlike anything else. I never felt the need to chase a different career hoping life would improve.

   I remember an old girlfriend telling me when we broke up that people don't change and that I never would. Looking back, she was partly right. I didn't change, but I grew.

        And there is a difference.

   The beliefs my parents gave me are still my beliefs. My faith is still my faith. My sense of right and wrong hasn't changed. What has changed is the depth behind them. Experience, mistakes, good days, heartbreak, raising children, losing people along the way and simply getting older have sharpened those convictions into something much stronger than they were when I was twenty-five.

   You can't get away from who you are, but if you are paying attention, you can spend a lifetime becoming a better version of the person you have always been.

  Oh, shit Chalkheads! Tonight’s sunset is closer to eight o’clock than it is to eight thirty. Get ready to start tripping over a longer shadow.

    … and when it comes to adventure. Who needs to run with the bulls when you can simply drive Lower Wacker Drive. 

July 27th, 2026

 

The older I get, the more I think Thoreau was right.

    He wrote today's quote after spending two years living in a one-room cabin beside Walden Pond in Massachusetts. He was not trying to escape the world. He was trying to figure out how little a man really needs to live a rich life.

    His wealth wasn't measured in dollars. It was measured in mornings with the sunrise over the pond. Reading a good book with the sound of birds in the trees, and a walk through the woods on a quiet afternoon with nothing to prove.

  Those pleasures don't cost much.

  As I approach ten years of writing these Morning Chalkboards, I have started thinking about doing something similar someday. I would love to spend a little time alone in a cabin with a stack of books, a notebook, a pot of coffee, and no schedule except sunrise and sunset. Not to hide from life, but to remember what life is.

   Funny thing is, when I look back on my happiest moments, very few required money.

  Listening to WGN with my dad on a Saturday morning. Naps with George asleep on my belly. Watching Fritz chase another impossible idea and playing Barbies for hours with Hazel. Driving Betty, the Green Blazer with the windows down over to Parky’s for a hotdog. Sitting on the balcony with a cup of coffee or a cocktail waving to the neighbors.
        … and a morning conversation with all of you Chalkheads. The piece of chalk has become our therapist.

   Maybe Thoreau wasn't talking about being cheap. Maybe he was reminding us that the richest lives are often built from the simplest moments.

  We are coming to the end of July into the beginning of August this week. Let’s not start kissing each other on the mouth just yet over both of these winning baseball teams. They have shown us plenty of times that being in first on August first doesn’t guarantee they will be there in October.

    Let’s finish the month strong Chalkheads. I see plenty of gusto and astonishment in the dog days of summer.

July 26th, 2026

 

       "Our pain shapes us; erase it, and we erase part of ourselves."

       I read that quote this morning and, if I am being honest, I felt pretty lucky.

    I have walked this earth for sixty years and, compared to many people, I have never had to weather a truly devastating storm. Now, saying that out loud probably guarantees a shit show is heading my way, but it is still the truth.

    My parents divorced when I was a kid. It hurt, but life kept moving. Years later they both died, which is what parents are supposed to do. As much as I miss them, I was fortunate. They passed away in beds and not in a tragic accident or in a lonely house.

    There was a stretch when I was unemployed between the bond room and moving into the grain room. At the time it felt like a disaster. Looking back, it reinvented my career. I found a place in the grain business and somehow outlasted the trading floor itself.

    My marriage ended in divorce. That hurt too, but just like my parents unknowingly taught me, life keeps going. Eventually the divorce papers end up in a paper shredder, and what is left are the lessons.

   My children give me something to worry about every day. That is part of being a parent. As they grow older, more of life's weight shifts onto their shoulders and a little less stay on mine. My job now is to trust that I prepared them well enough to carry whatever comes next.

  When I look back over these first sixty years, I know I've been spared many of the tragedies that visit other families. I haven't watched a hurricane, wildfire or flood take away everything I owned. I haven't endured many tragedies that millions of people quietly live through every day.

   The truth is, most of the pain I have carried came from the assclown who stares back at me in the bathroom mirror. Bad decisions, poor judgment and a hard head. Most of my scars were self-inflicted, and they taught me lessons no one else could have.

   Maybe that is why this morning's quote struck a chord. I don't want to erase those scars. They remind me who I was and what I have become.

My goal for these last twenty years or so isn't to avoid pain. Life doesn't make that bargain with anyone. My goal is to stop manufacturing pain.

   I can't control illness, loss or bad luck, but I can control the decisions I make. I can be a better father, a better friend and a better man than I was yesterday.

   I don't want to spend the rest of my life earning new scars that don't need to be there

       Instead…  I want to hold the door open for a stranger. I want to hand an Old Style to a dear friend. I want to tell someone Casablanca is my favorite movie and watch them discover it for the first time. I want someone to tell me my prayers helped. I want to have jumper cables in my trunk just in case someone needs a jump.

    Those aren't remarkable accomplishments. They are just small ways to leave people with a little less pain than they had before we crossed paths.

      And I want to make sure you Chalkheads always know where the sun is...

              ...and that gusto and astonishment are always there for the taking.

July 25th, 2026

 

       Yesterday was my daughter’s thirteenth birthday.

        George and I drove over to her mother's house with presents and homemade cookies. Hazel locked herself in the bathroom before we got there and stayed there the entire time.

    The tension inside that dark little house was thick enough to taste. The curtains were drawn shut and the windows were closed tight on one of the prettiest July afternoons of the summer. It felt like the sunshine wasn't allowed inside.

    We waited around, hoping she would come out. Maybe we could watch her open her presents and sing Happy Birthday.

    George spent most of the visit bird-dogging the birthday cake. He really wanted a piece. We left without seeing Hazel. No hugs, no presents opened and no cake.

    The drive back across Mannheim Road has become one of the saddest drives of my life. This one wasn’t any different.

          I thought about the two gifts I picked out.

   One was The War That Saved My Life, a novel about a young girl in wartime England trapped inside a house by a troubled, controlling mother. I have no idea if Hazel will ever read it. Maybe she will never crack the cover. Maybe she will read it soon. I just hoped she would find a character who reminded her that life can become much bigger than the walls around you.

       The other gift was Abbey Road. Well...it's the Beatles.

  Those four Liverpool lads helped raise me. They carried me from nursery rhymes to the Rolling Stones. Hazel has heard those songs her whole life. More than once she fell asleep while I sang Golden Slumbers to her.

           Later Friday night my phone buzzed.

      "The Beatles? I don't even listen to the Beatles. And a book...geez, thanks a lot."

   I smiled a little. Not because it felt good, but because she is thirteen. I'm betting that book gathers dust for quite a while. The record, though...

   At some point she will put it on a turntable, and in a long time from now, Here Comes the Sun, Mean Mr. Mustard and Come Together may remind her of her grumpy Oldman the same way Gershwin, Bix Beiderbecke and Dvořák remind me of mine.

     Music has a funny way of carrying people long after words stop working.

  Many of you Chalkheads have walked beside me these last few months. You have sent prayers, stories and encouragement that have meant more than you will ever know. You have also reminded me that difficult seasons between fathers and daughters happen more often than fathers want to admit.

     I wasn't prepared for this chapter. Truthfully, I don't like it much, but I also know that thirteen isn't forever.

    Neither is adolescence. Neither is resentment. Neither is pain. Children grow up and parents keep loving them anyway.

    This morning I'm going to wash Felix the Ford Flex. I am going to fill him up with gas. Then I'm heading up to Oak Park Bakery for a chocolate éclair.

     Yesterday wasn't only Hazel's birthday. It also marked five years until my last payment to the mean lady west of Mannheim Road.

         Time keeps moving. Sometimes that is the best friend we've got.

   Go enjoy this last Saturday of July, you gorgeous Chalkheads.

         Gusto, astonishment...and custard filling.

July 24th, 2026

 

Hazelnut,

Happy thirteenth birthday Daughter,

    There is something I hope you learn much earlier than I did. Life moves in seasons. The things you believe at thirteen won’t all be the things you believe at twenty-three, or thirty-three or forty-three, and probably nowhere close when you are fifty-three.

    Your favorite songs will change. Your favorite books will change. The clothes you love, the people you admire, the dreams you chase and even the way you see the world will keep changing. That isn’t confusion, that is growth.

 I have spent my life falling in love with different writers. For a while I wanted to  write like each of them because I thought they understood something important about being human and about being me. Maybe they were simply standing on different mountains, looking at the same world from another direction.

 

   If I had written to you as William Shakespeare, I would tell you that the world is overflowing with wonder if you keep your eyes open long enough to see it. I would remind you that love, laughter, heartbreak and forgiveness are all part of the same grand play, and every soul has a part worth performing. I would hope you never lose your delight in flowers blooming after winter, sunsets over the river and the strange miracle that ordinary people can become extraordinary simply by loving well.

 

   Then there was the season when I wanted to sound like Ernest Hemingway. I would tell you that courage is usually quiet, that character is built one hard decision at a time, and that strength means doing the right thing long after applause has disappeared. Stand up for yourself, stand beside those who need someone beside them, and remember that dignity is something no one can take from you unless you hand it away.

 

   Scott Fitzgerald reminded me that life should never become so practical that it forgets how to dream. I would tell you to dance when music finds you, to chase sunsets, to fall in love with books, operas, conversations and adventures, and to believe there is still magic hiding in ordinary spaces. Keep your imagination alive, because faith and dreams have carried more people through dark times than certainty ever has.

 

  Then I discovered Mike Royko, and he stripped away every excuse. Work your ass off, tell the truth, don’t let anybody bullshit you, and don’t mistake loud people for important people. Treat everyone fairly, from the CEO to the janitor and never settle for mediocrity. Never let life hustle you into becoming someone you were never meant to be. Never mealy mouth the world and never be a faker.

 

       As I have grown older, I have realized I don’t really want to write like any of them anymore. I just want to sound like your Oldman.

   If I have learned anything worth passing on after all these years, it is this… stay curious enough to keep changing, stay humble enough to keep learning, and stay true enough that no matter how many seasons your life goes through, you never lose the best parts of who you are.

   I hope one day you find your own voice. Borrow from the people you admire, learn from everyone you meet, but don't spend your life trying to sound like somebody else. The world already has Shakespeare, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Royko and Jumbo. It only gets one Hazel Marie Shepley

    Happy birthday Daughter.

          Love, The Big Ogre who will always smell old and will never stop saying how much he loves you……   

                   Your Da,

              John S. Shepley

July 23rd, 2026

   Anytime I turn on the television and one of those cartoon movies from the Shepkids' toddler days is playing, I stop and watch. There I am, sitting in my living room all by myself, no little kids running around anymore, just an old guy watching Lightning McQueen race around Radiator Springs, Buzz Lightyear trying to get back to Andy, Remy the French rat making soup in Paris, or WALL•E rolling around cleaning up Earth.
   Last night it was Finding Nemo. Bruce the shark was on, trying his best to convince everyone that "fish are friends, not food." I probably should have changed the channel and gotten something productive done, but I didn't. I sat there and watched the entire movie.
   Those movies are more than cartoons to me now. They are time machines that take me back to a happy memory.
   The first movie I ever took George to see in a theater was The Princess and the Frog. He absolutely loved the music. For years afterward he would dance around the house whenever one of those songs came on. Fritz was a WALL•E kid. He could sit quietly and watch that little rusty robot over and over again without getting bored. Hazel's heart belonged to Frozen. She wanted to be Elsa, and I learned every word to "Let It Go," whether I wanted to or not.
   Back then I wasn't really watching the movies. I was watching my kids watch the movies.
   I would glance over during the funny parts just to see them laugh. During the scary scenes I would watch them pull the blanket a little tighter or scoot a little closer to me. Looking back, I realize those were the moments that mattered most. The movies were just the backdrop. The real show was watching three little people discover wonder.
   This morning I chalked a quote from Finding Nemo. "Just keep swimming."
For a line spoken by a forgetful blue fish, it is good advice to follow.
   Life has a funny way of convincing us to stop. We get tired, we lose people we love, we make mistakes, and we worry about tomorrow. Most days we wonder if we are doing enough or if we are heading in the right direction.
   Maybe the answer isn't nearly as difficult as we make it. Take another stroke and another, then another and just keep moving forward. Trust that eventually you will find calmer water…
     … and if an old Pixar movie can remind us of that, maybe it is worth stopping for a couple of hours once in a while.  
       Just keep swimming, Chalkheads and enjoy this gorgeous Thursday.

July 22nd, 2026

 

   You can put a woman in an elegant gown on New Year's Eve, but she's just as beautiful pulling weeds in a summer dress.

   You can have a wonderful dinner at a fancy French restaurant or sit on a bench outside a hot dog stand with mustard running down your shirt.

   You can board a jet and fly to the Orient or hop on the CTA and spend the afternoon wandering through Chinatown.

   You can live in a penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan or on the third floor of a three-flat overlooking the Divorced Dad District.

       The older I get, the more I realize that comfort usually beats elegance.

  Flowers are beautiful and they can brighten a room. They tell someone you are thinking about them, but flowers fade after a few days.

       A bowl of dumplings feeds you and gives instant comfort.

  Today's chalkboard says, "Life isn't always flowers. Sometimes it's a bowl of dumplings."

    To me, that isn't settling for less. It is learning to appreciate what is practical.

      Today happens to be National Hammock Day.

  When Terese and I got married, someone gave us a hammock. Looking back, it may have been the best wedding gift we received. It certainly got more use than the Waterford crystal candle holders or the fancy wine decanter.

          That hammock became part of our family.

   We spent quiet evenings cuddling in it. We took Sunday afternoon naps in it. Then George showed up and took naps with us. Before long Fritz was climbing aboard, and eventually Hazel made it her spot too.

   Every once in a while, PopPop would wander out, ease himself into that hammock, and close his eyes for a bit. I can still picture his shoes sitting neatly side by side underneath the nylon webbing while he relaxed in the shade.

     That hammock wasn't expensive. It wasn't elegant, but it was practical. More importantly, it was comforting.

    I have brought flowers to hospitals, funerals and birthdays more times than I can count. They are always appreciated, but if I showed up carrying a pizza or an ice-cold six pack of beer, I would usually get a bigger smile.

  People remember the things that make them feel cared for. Maybe that is another one of the little secrets to getting older.

   You begin choosing substance over appearance, comfort over ceremony and dumplings over flowers.

   Because in the end, very few of us remember the crystal decanter.

   We remember the hammock.

   We remember the pizza.

   We remember the people who sat beside us while we ate dumplings and somehow, those simple things become the finest things we ever owned.