March 28th, 2026

 I don’t have much to chalk about this morning.

Here we are finishing up March already. Spring has begun with the usual bipolar symptoms.

Baseball started last week and in typical fashion, both Chicago teams crapped the bed on opening day.

As we switch into April, Holy Week and Passover arrive. A time where we strengthen our relationship with our faith, family and friends. It is where we embrace the traditions of our Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Either blood over the door or blood dripping down the cross, we must stand together and find peace in this world of hate.

That’s what you get with the Morning Chalkboard.

Friday I’m chalking about boobs and Saturday I’m pulling spiritual stuff out.

Let’s finish March with fulfillment and begin April on the path to astonishment and gusto.

And none of that mickey mouse bullshit on April 1st. I’m not in the mood for the ketchup on hotdog memes you Chalkheads post to piss me off.

The quote today is more for show. When the Shepley brothers wake up and see it, hopefully another seed is planted.

The grabber section is another Latin lesson. It means to make haste slowly. A reminder to move efficiently but avoid careless mistakes.

Like my Oldman always said, “when you make mistakes, make sure they don’t cost me a ton of money son…..”

I put a smile on the sun, go smile back at it!

March 27th, 2026

 I went with Sarte the other day, now I’m going with Camus. You Chalkheads might think I’m becoming an existentialist!

The grabber section is pretty clear.

Those boobs we once longed to grab in 7th grade belong to the girls that we grew up with. Let’s make sure the women that we love are healthy and happy as we settle into these later years.

I might be more of an ass man, but the breast cannot be ignored. I know that sooner or later Hazel will read my Chalkboards. My mother-in-law is a Chalkhead and she is reading right now.

From our daughters to the mommies to the women in the graduating classes before us. Their mental health and physical health are important to keep an eye on.

Now I know that it might sound easy for a guy who sleeps alone and doesn’t have to deal with a partner experiencing menopause, but I still have a shit ton of JumboLove that I love and need to protect.

So, Tits up to everyone!

From the women who place them into a bra to the men that caress them.

We are in this together…. Tits Up!

... And Hazel… yes, dad will always be embarrassing!

March 26th, 2026

 It’s Opening Day, 2026. The Southsiders are up in Milwaukee, and the Cubbies are home on the North Side.

Let’s pray that smile on the sun sticks around into the late innings this afternoon.

The quote this morning comes from Pete Rose, and I get his point, but I’ve sat at both Wrigley and Comiskey during a winter wonderland.

I’m not too excited about my ball club this summer. Truth is, last year was the first time I didn’t go to a Sox game since the early ’70s. That says something about the product they put on the field.

A lot of people that I once knew never saw the Sox win the World Series. I was lucky that they gave me one in my lifetime. That’s enough to keep the door cracked every spring.

These days, I am more excited about Pope Leo. We both say the same prayers every morning and we both cheer “White Sox” towards the end of the seventh-inning stretch. Old habits don’t die, they just settle in and make great memories.

If nothing else, baseball gets us to football season. That, and grilled onions on a hot dog, are about all I need from the White Sox…

…well, that and a couple cold beers.

Gusto, astonishment, and grand slams.

Let’s play two.

March 25th, 2026

 Everywhere I go, everything I do, I do alone.

I go to dinner alone.

I go to the pub alone.

I go to mass alone.

I go to bed alone.

I sit on my balcony alone.

I run my errands alone.

And the thing is… when I do all of that alone, I’m never lonely.

I was an only child. I’ve always been alone. Even on a trading floor with thousands of people, I’d leave and go off somewhere on my own after the closing bell.

I’ve been to more baseball games by myself than with friends or a date. Nothing better than sitting at Sox Park with a scorecard, a sack of peanuts, and a beer vendor who knows his job.

Thirty some years ago, I was sitting down the first base line at Comiskey on a summer night. A couple buddies of mine were sitting in Mayor Daley’s seats with their family.

“I think I see Jumbo sitting by himself.”

“Let’s go get him.”

I went from shooting the shit with strangers to sitting in those seats near the Sox dugout making memories with the Grace family. To this day, they still give me grief about how they “saved the lonely guy.”

They had it wrong then… and most people still do.

Alone isn’t lonely.

I still live like that latchkey kid from the late ’70s. I take care of myself. I don’t ask for help. I just do it.

There are perks.

I can leave the peanut butter out on the counter.

I don’t have to put the toilet seat down.

I can take a nap when I want.

Wake up at the crack of dawn.

I can make coffee or make a mimosa, it doesn’t matter.

The older the Shepkids get, the less time they want to be around a fossil from the last century. That’s alright, because that is the way it goes.

I have three knuckleheads that love me. I’ve got a job I love going to. I have a good place that I call home. The ladies at the bakery and the hotdog stand know my order by heart. My bartender welcomes me with a big hello when I walk into the pub and all my neighbors wave to me when they walk by the balcony.

Next August, when I turn sixty, I’m taking myself to Gene & Georgetti’s. Big steak, gin martini and a nice bottle of wine. Table for one, no need to make reservations.

I chalked this Sartre quote and it stuck with me. It fits where I am right now in life.

A divorced dad who gets up, makes his bed, goes to work, comes home, goes to bed… and does it again the next day.

Keep good company, Chalkheads, even if that company is yourself.

March 24th, 2026

  I spent an hour Monday night looking at the crescent moon and the tight little cluster of the Pleiades. It made me think about those I love who have become stars in my sky.

I often tell myself that Heaven is closer than Indianapolis, Oak Park, or Edgewater Beach up on the North Side.

A dear friend of mine lost her mom earlier this month. She is missing her dearly. I told her to look for signs.

Several hours later, I heard a rap on my bedroom window. The wind was calm.

It was my mom and you Chalkheads guessed it, the clock read 2:22 a.m.

I don’t mind being awake earlier than I’m supposed to. It beats the alternative…

…and that is grieving.

I don’t have time to grieve, because my parents have never left me.

Do you know what I miss?

I miss Robin Williams, David Bowie, Prince, and Dick Buckley on WBEZ.

I miss Gossage Grill, Cavanaugh’s, The Comeback Inn, Gennaro’s, and Zum Deutschen Eck.

I miss the old Sox Park, Soldier Field before the spaceship landed, Bush Stadium with the teepee in centerfield, and the Chicago Stadium.

I miss watching baseball on television without a subscription or a streaming service.

I miss Old Style being krausened up in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

…And I miss my kids’ toddler voices saying, “I love you, Dada.”

But I don’t miss my parents.

We are getting closer to the Judeo-Christian holy seasons. That Passover supper is one of the strongest bonds between our faiths.

We need to hold onto that. We need to walk together and fight the terror of hate.

Because I truly believe WE are headed to the same place, eternal peace.

We won’t have a flock of virgins meeting us.

But we will meet Moses, David, Jesus and Don Rickles….

… and our loved ones will be there as well!

It’s Tuesday morning.

And things never looked so good. I’m already in a daydream.

March 23rd, 2026

    I chalked down a line from the Peaky Blinders movie that came out over the weekend. I was going to talk about pubs, but then I put chip and dip in the grabber section.

Now that’s something worth talking about. Because before hummus, before queso, before guacamole, before anybody tried stacking five ingredients into a glass bowl and call it something special, there was the real thing.

A box of Jay’s potato chips and a tub of Dean’s French onion dip. No frills and no food processor. Just salt, crunch, and something cold and creamy to drag it through.

Summer of ’75, we played baseball every morning and afternoon. It wasn’t organized, we didn’t have coaches or a scoreboard. Just a bunch of kids chasing a baseball across cracked pavement and uneven grass.

We played until somebody’s mom yelled, or the sun dipped just enough to make it hard to see.

There was a kid down the alley, Timmy Banacek who had something better than a clubhouse. He had a fort built up in the rafters of his garage. You climbed a ladder that didn’t feel all that safe, hauled yourself up into a world that felt like it belonged only to us. That was the rule, once you were up there, you were one of the guys.

But you didn’t get in empty-handed. You had to bring something.

One afternoon I took a box of Jay’s from my ma’s cupboard. I didn’t ask, I just took it and walked out the backdoor. Then I walked down the block to Kresge’s with whatever change I could scrape together. Came back with a tub of French onion dip like I was carrying a treasure. When I set it down up there in that dusty fort, it might as well have been a pot if gold.

That was it. That was the price of admission and just like that, I belonged. I was the guy who dropped a ball in right field, but I made up for it with the chips and dip.

We sat up there, legs hanging over the edge, passing around chips, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. Baseball scores, who made the best catch, who almost hit one over the fence that didn’t exist. No phones, no noise and no distractions. Just the sound of kids who thought the world was exactly as big as that alley and exactly as good as that moment.

We were kings up there. Kings with scraped knees, dirty hands, and a bag of chips between us.

Funny how something that simple can stay with me fifty years later. Not the score of the game. Not even who was there. Just the feeling of climbing up the ladder, the smell of that dip and the way a handful of kids could turn a garage into a kingdom.

Not a care in the world. Baseball, forts, Jay’s potato chips and Dean’s French dip. My parents never realized the box of chips was missing.

That garage was torn down years ago when a yuppie bought Timmy’s parent’s house. Our old baseball field has a playground in centerfield and potato chips don’t come in a box anymore.

The Cubs and Sox were both 75-87 in 1975, but the kids I hung out with that summer were undefeated. It was a good summer to be a kid.

It’s going to be a good Monday. I put a smile on the sun.

March 22nd, 2026

 I chalked a quote from Waldo E this morning. The warmth of Saturday is still in the air at four-thirty, but by the time all you Chalkheads wake up, it will be forty two degrees.

Funny how that works out. Don’t wait for perfect conditions while the clock continues the quick pace.

Soon I will be shutting the window and grabbing a sweatshirt. Congratulations to those that went outside yesterday and got in some good living. For you poor bastards that put things off until Sunday, grab a scarf.

We are entering the last full week of March. The end of the month brings Holy Week and Passover.

Don’t prepare for gusto and astonishment. Run after it, search it out and grab on.

March 21st, 2026

 There are some stories that stay around longer than others. Not because they are loud or dramatic, but because they need to be told. This story is unfortunately one of those.

Kevin Goodman was a farmer. That should tell you almost everything you need to know right there. Early mornings, long days and quiet pride. The kind of man who doesn’t complain much because there is always something that needs to get done. The kind of man who carries more than anyone can see.

At his burial, his son Christian did something only a farm boy would think to do. He brought a cup of dirt from the pitcher’s mound at Iowa State, where his dad once threw baseballs as a young man. When they placed Kevin’s urn in the ground, the dirt from Ames went in first.

“From now on,” Christian said, “my dad will always be on the mound.”

It is a beautiful image. A man set back where he once stood tall, ready to throw one more pitch. It fits another story about a field of dreams out in Iowa. It sounds like a peaceful story about an Iowa farmer who played baseball in college, but the truth behind that moment is harder.

Kevin took his own life.

And like a lot of things in agriculture, it didn’t happen all at once. It built slowly, over time, under pressure that most people never saw.

The Goodman family farm was a fourth-generation operation. That word, generation carries weight in the farming world. It isn't just land. It is identity, it is legacy and it is responsibility handed down from one set of hands to the next.

When Kevin’s parents passed away, the farm was divided equally among their children. On paper, that sounds like a fair deal. In practice, it brought conflict to Kevin and his siblings. Kevin was the one farming the family land. The others were not. Yet every decision required agreement, and before long, agreement turned into a battle.

Plans were made to eventually sell the farm. Restrictions were put in place that made operating harder. Buyouts added debt as lawyers took over the conversations. Suddenly something that had been built over generations started to come apart.

Here is the part that hits close to home. Farmers and commodity brokers aren’t all that different. We get up early. We live by numbers and outcomes we don’t fully control. Weather for them, markets for us. Both turn out to be issues for both of us.

You can do everything right and still get blindsided. When that happens, there’s an instinct that kicks in... lower your shoulders, bow your neck, and push through it.

That instinct builds resilience, but it also builds silence.

Kevin kept working the farm and paying the bills. He took care of all the obligations. From the outside, everything looked like it was being handled. That is the dangerous part. Because the people who are the best at carrying the load are often the last ones to say it’s too heavy.

He had a warning moment with an attempt in December. His family urged him to get help, but the cost of treatment wasn’t covered. For a man already worried about finances, adding another bill felt impossible. So he did what he knew how to do. He went back to work.

That isn't weakness. That is old school conditioning built on faith and hard work. That is how a lot of people in the farming community are wired.

Christian now wonders if things could have been different. If stepping away might have changed the outcome. That is a heavy question for a son to carry, but this shouldn't have been his to solve alone.

There are lessons here, they aren’t complicated and they are hard. Equal shares isn’t always fair when it comes to a working farm. Silence is not strength when it replaces honest conversation. Legacy isn’t preserved by avoiding difficult decisions. It is protected by facing them head-on, early, and together. Not with lawyers, but as a family.

There is another lesson too, one that doesn’t get talked about enough.

It’s okay to say it’s too much.

In agriculture, in the markets, in the barn, on a trading desk and in life, there is a line where toughness stops being strength and starts becoming isolation. Knowing where that line is and having the courage to step across it and ask for help might be the most important skill of them all.

Kevin Goodman’s story doesn’t end with how he died. It lives in how he worked, how he showed up, and how deeply he cared about keeping something meaningful alive.

That is the final image worth holding onto.

A man on the pitcher's mound.

Not because the game was easy, but because he kept pitching the ball with everything he had.

Many of us have bills adding up on the kitchen table and less money in our pockets. Ask for help and remember the foundation is built on faith, family and friends.

...and Chalkheads too!

WITH YOU!

March 20th, 2026

 Last night, I stood in the hallway between the boys’ rooms and called out, “I love you, boys.”

From each room came an answer, same words, different voices.

Each one carrying the personality of the son who said it.

And just like that… everything that had me pissed off earlier disappeared.

The dishes left in the sink.

The laundry piled outside of the basket.

The clogged toilet.

The endless grab ass between two brothers.

All of the bullcrap was gone for a quick moment and I went to bed feeling blessed.

Spring starts today and with it comes gusto and astonishment. We made it through another winter.

March 19th, 2026

 We have just come out of the dark.

The new moon passed quietly without fanfare or bright lights and attention like a full moon gets. Just a dark sky that asked you to sit alone a little longer and rejuvenate.

We have entered the waxing crescent and the sliver will start to return.

After a cold start to the week, there is a little warmth returning into the weekend. A reminder that things do change, even when it feels like they won’t.

Langston Hughes said it better than most:

“My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

That kind of depth doesn’t happen fast and that is where the tension lives.

We are used to time moving quickly.

Days turn into weeks before you even get your footing. You look up and wonder where the hell it went. Time doesn’t slow down for you, and it never waits for you to catch up.

But growth doesn’t move like time.

Growth is stubborn and takes its time. Growth asks you to show up repeatedly, long before there is anything to show for it.

That is the dealio Chalkheads.

You don’t speed up growth to match time. You steady yourself inside it. You stop chasing the full moon and start respecting the sliver.

Because while time may rush past you, your work is still the same today as it was yesterday. Show up and grow a little more.

That is how something small becomes something deep. Not all at once, but slowly…

... like a river.

So if today doesn’t feel like a breakthrough, don’t get discouraged. It isn't supposed to be. If you stay with it, if you keep putting one honest day on top of another, you won’t need to chase fullness. You will grow into it.

One day, without even realizing when it happened, you won’t be chasing time anymore…

...you’ll be carrying something that time can’t take from you. The legacy that you cut like a river underneath the light and darkness of the moon.

March 18th, 2026

 A Wednesday morning with a simple question on the board: What can I do for you?

It is a plain sentence that has zero poetry to it. It has no flash, but there is weight behind it if you mean it.

That question carried Lou Holtz through his life as a coach, a teacher, and a man. Not because it sounded good, but because he lived it. He understood something most people didn’t understand. If you focus on helping others, you don’t have to chase meaning. Meaning will find you.

I have written that question before. Not perfectly, but enough to know it changes how you walk through the world. Lately, I have been thinking, I want this to be part of how I go out.

I don’t want to copy another man or borrow his voice. I want to build my own version of that question. Something that fits my hands, my life, my story. Because the truth is, life has a way of narrowing things down.

My parents have gone to heaven. I’m an only child, so I have no brothers or sisters beside me. I’m no longer married or in a relationship. Those parts of my life don’t exist. There is no circling back to them, no revisiting what was. Those chapters are closed, and are not coming back.

What Is left isn’t nothing. What’s left is everything that still matters.

I’m a father.

I’m a friend…

… and if I’m being honest, that is where the real work is anyway.

There is no hiding in those roles. No titles to lean on. No shortcuts. Either you show up, or you don’t. Either people can count on you, or they can’t.

So this isn’t about writing a quote on a chalkboard. It’ i about becoming the kind of man who can stand behind it.

“What can I do for you?” only means something if you’re willing to follow through. It means listening when it’s inconvenient. It means showing up when you are tired. It means putting someone else’s need ahead of your own comfort.

It doesn’t mean being everything to everyone. That is a mistake, it means being reliable to the people God has put in your life. The ones who look to you, whether they say it out loud or not.

Your children.

Your friends.

The ones who trust you enough to lean, even just a little.

Faith plays a role here too. Not the kind you talk about to sound good, but the kind that steadies your feet when things feel thin. The kind that reminds you that service isn’t weakness. It has alignment and purpose.

If you want peace, you prepare yourself to serve.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

If you want peace, prepare for war. But maybe the war isn’t always out there. Maybe it is the daily fight against selfishness, against drifting, against becoming someone people can’t rely on.

That is the real battleground.

Winning that fight doesn’t look dramatic. It looks like consistency.

So maybe my version isn’t going to sound exactly like Coach Holtz. Maybe it is quieter. Maybe it is rough around the edges, but if I can walk into a room, whether it’s with my kids, my friends, or anyone who crosses my path and carry that same intention…

What can I do for you?

Because at the end of it all, people don’t remember what you said nearly as much as they remember whether they could count on you. And if I can become a man people can lean on....

.....through faith, through trust, through showing up, that will be enough.

March 17th, 2026

 Early on, there was Wally Phillips on WGN. Both my parents listened to him, and my dad would often call in when there was a railroad question that needed answering. Wally had the Ellery Queen Minute Mystery, and as a kid I loved trying to solve it before school.

Even then, the radio was always on.

When I was a young boy, I remember hearing Orion Samuelson talk about agriculture and small-town living. He would quote the grain and meat markets from the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I had no idea then that his voice and those numbers would foreshadow my own career in the markets.

His passing on March 16th is the reason I am chalking about radio.

My dad gave me a love for jazz, and a big part of that was Dick Buckley. He had a Sunday jazz show that my dad listened to religiously. Either on his transistor radio on the front porch or on the one in the laundry room in the basement.

I met Buckley by accident in the mid-1990s at a CD shop in Oak Park. I heard his voice talking to the salesperson and recognized it immediately. I introduced myself and he took the time to talk with me about the history of jazz. For forty-five minutes we talked about everything from swing to Dixieland to bop. That is the kind of generosity radio people seem to have.

Then there was Al “Mr. A” Hudgins on WNIB during the 80s and 90s with his late-night blues program. After midnight until four in the morning, he was my guide through the Chicago blues.

Paul Harvey was another voice that seemed to be everywhere the radio was on around my dad. With that unmistakable delivery and his signature sign-off, “And now you know… the rest of the story.” He became one of the most trusted and recognizable voices on radio and another one of my Oldman’s favorites.

There was Dick Biondi, the King of the Oldies, spinning early rock and roll through my younger years. We had Bob Collins, who became my dad’s best friend on the radio after Wally Phillips. My dad was devastated when Collins died tragically in an airplane crash.

My dad had Wally Phillips and Bob Collins. My generation had Lin Brehmer on WXRT.

Lin used to say he was “your best friend in the whole world,” and the truth is he made everyone feel fabulous to be alive. When cancer took him, it hit Chicago hard. When Lin died, I finally understood how my dad must have felt when Bob Collins left the airwaves.

Radio voices do that. They comfort us. They give us a sense of security. Over time they become family, the big brother, the uncle, the grandpa, the music teacher.

All those memories came rushing back with the recent loss of Orion Samuelson, the Big O. With him gone, it feels like one of the last living pieces of my dad disappeared too.

I can still hear that deep voice telling stories and quoting the markets. It seemed like Orion was always on in our house. On the kitchen counter, in the basement laundry room, on the front porch, the back porch, the garage, and in the car. Wherever my dad went, the radio was playing.

Now I realize I do the same thing.

There is a radio in my kitchen that plays twenty-four hours a day. My kids hear jazz and blues from WDCB, my old-time radio show on Saturday afternoons, and classical music overnight on WFMT.

Orion hasn’t been giving the daily market reports for a few years, but he was still the American farmer’s best friend. He used to say: “If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.” He had a way of saying things that stuck with you. I remember him telling a clueless morning host not too long ago that almond milk has nothing to do with milk.

“You can milk a cow,” he said, “but you can’t milk a nut.”

He defended dairy farmers, and really all farmers, and he defended small-town America, from right here in Chicago.

Every Christmas I still listen to his voice on WGN reading “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” A tradition that is as important as George Bailey and Rudolph.

Back in the late 1970s, Orion brought a young broadcaster into the mix, Max Armstrong. Together they became two of agriculture’s strongest voices, telling the stories of farming to people who might otherwise never hear them.

Now Orion joins a remarkable lineup of Chicago voices who have skipped the ionosphere and moved on to the heavenly atmosphere to broadcast their shows.

…and if I’m being honest, I’d just like to hear him one more time. Just once more I would like to hear that deep voice say:

“May soybeans are trading eleven dollars and fifty-three cents… and in the corn pit, the May contract is four dollars and fifty-six.”

Because for a lot of us, that wasn’t just a market report. It was the sound of home.

March 16th, 2026

 I chalked this board at 2:30 Monday morning after being rudely awoken at 2:22am by my mom. Three hard knocks on the bedroom door startled me out of a dream that had me drooling on my pillow.

Thanks Ma…

I’ve had this song running through my head since seeing a video yesterday of Ike Reilly singing it. The lyrics landed and wouldn’t leave.

I rarely listen to this band much anymore. Usually around Saint Patrick’s Day and their one song at Christmas. That song is one of my favorite Christmas songs. The band was a solid foundation in my musical taste since the 1980’s. We are cut from the same cloth if you like The Pogues.

I don’t have much more to say since I’m up an hour earlier than normal. 3:33 is the angel number that my alarm is set at.

Today I start donating money to lucky winners of square pools and bracket pots. I always root for Maguire University, Indiana, Butler, Loyola, DePaul and Iowa. I don’t think any of my teams are in. So I’ll root for Illinois and Purdue.

The weather is going to suck this week. Let’s flip into the second half of March and hope for the best.

Gusto and astonishment for all Chalkheads.

Go Team….

March 15th, 2026

 We go from pies to Caesar overnight.

From Pi Day to the Ides of March while we splash green on everything and celebrate the Irish American culture that helped build what we know as modern-day Chicagoland.

That’s the rhythm of March around here.

Yesterday was packed the way real life is packed…

…wakes, rugby matches, birthday parties.

The full human ledger. Grief in one room, laughter in another, muddy cleats on the sideline and candles on a cake by nightfall. Life rarely organizes itself neatly as It keeps us moving.

The sun showed itself for a short stretch after sunrise yesterday, just enough to remind us it still lives above the gray. By noon the snow came drifting down again, reminding everyone who’s really in charge of the weather.

That’s March too.

Today is the Ides of March, a date that history remembers for betrayal and ambition. Most of us will spend it in more ordinary ways…

…coffee cups in our hands, laundry tumbling in dryers, butts in church pews while we think quietly about the week ahead.

There is something honest about an early Sunday morning laundromat. The machines hum like a low choir, people mind their business, and the world slows down just enough to gather your thoughts.

The Irish who helped build this city understood something about endurance. They dug canals, laid brick, poured concrete, and built neighborhoods that still stand. Chicago wasn’t polished into existence. It was fought into shape by people who worked, prayed, argued, laughed, and showed up again the next morning.

That is the lesson for today.

History moves through emperors and assassinations, but real life moves through ordinary mornings.

A cup of coffee, a quiet thought and clean towels in a warm dryer.

Sometimes that is more than enough to begin again.