November 30th, 2021

 I’m not going to sugarcoat this or bullshit anyone today. This quote is a tough one to live by.

It might bring in the theory about how integrity is the way you act when nobody is watching. When my kids are around I treat everyone kind. Even the Mother Fucker that doesn’t know how to use his turn signal!

Well I just lied to you!

My kids think Fucking Directional is one word! Used in a sentence- “Hey buddy, nice fuckingdirectional!” Or “how about using a fuckingdirectional?”

It’s hard to be nice to everyone. If your not nice to a black person, you’re a racist. If you’re too nice to a woman, you’re a creep. If you’re too nice to a gay person, you’re gay. If you’re not nice to a gay person, homophobic! It’s a fine line for a fat white boy to walk!

As a dad….. everyone from a waitress to the drive-thru person. Cashiers, butchers, strippers, cable repairmen, Amazon driver….People walking by… even people in Cub hats and packer jackets! I gotta set an example! Be nice…..

The biggest assholes on the trading floor were always the nicest guy on “Bring your daughter to work day.”

So good luck with the quote today! I don’t have my kids on Tuesday’s so you better use your fuckingdirectional!

One last thing….. Liverwurst/Braunschweiger?

I don’t care what you call it!

Put it on rye with brown mustard, slice of tomato and a slice of onion…. Yeah Baby!

I am in the Liverwurst/Braunschweiger fan club!

November 29th, 2021

 Over the weekend I discovered two people that I love dearly are not speaking to each other. A brother and sister. Two family members I’ve known for over fifty years.

I gave myself too much credit thinking I’d have this schism healed by Monday. It hasn’t been fixed.

Twenty Six days until Christmas! Just about four weeks. That’s not to far from now and it’s not guaranteed!

Hell, I’ve lost several dear people this year. They all hit the “Like” button daily on the Chalkboard.

They don’t hit the “Like” button anymore! They’re gone!

One of us could be gone before Santa’s journey on Christmas Eve!

Our time together is short as it is. Why do we shorten it even more over petty bullshit….. AND it’s usually PETTY!

Time is an expensive price to heal all wounds when love and family is in the equation.

I’m not the only one that has this happening in my life! Suck it up! Like Don Shepley always said, “Not many people in this world think your fucking special son!”

So if you’re not speaking to someone who is special in your life…. FIX IT! Tick tock tick tock tick tock……………….

November 28th, 2021

 Maybe putting up the Christmas tree will help my hangover!

Don’t forget to light the first candle on your menorah!

All of us are Maccabees this week!

November 27th, 2021

 I was never able to master the pro level on that hand held electronic football game that came out in 1978. I always kicked ass on level two, but never on level one.

Not one victory on level one of that plastic piece of crap!

I did hold my ex wife’s head in my hand and her leg on my shoulder three times during birth. Glorious!

I did have both my parents tell me they are proud of me before they died. Glorious!

I did have a 25 year old man tell me that he has lived by many of my quotes from when I coached him in 7th/8th football. Glorious!

Before I die I’m going to beat those little red LED bleeping lights on that

Little piece of crap!

Last night the high school that I graduated from won state, again! Congratulations goes out to The Indianapolis Cathedral Fighting Irish.

Today the high school I should have graduated from (parents divorce) the Fenwick Friars are playing in their first state championship. Play well today Gentlemen.

Life is difficult as it is… Glory finds your way everyday! Everyday!

Go be you on this last Saturday of November…. It will be glorious!

November 26th, 2021

 There were many years when the shortened trading day after Thanksgiving was busy and chaotic.

Before the electronic trading closed the pits the volatility of human involvement was higher. Emotion drove the market more back then, not Algos.

Anything can happen when you take a hungover skeleton crew and put them in charge of price discovery.

One year we had four out of nine in our group working on Black Friday. Just four of us and we decided to send someone to Maxwell Street to buy two dozen Polish.

So three of us are left to watch the customers, fill the orders and check the trades. The bonds rally a point and buy stops are getting triggered. We had a half a dozen locals in the pit and all I can think about is where the fuck my Maxwell Street Polish was!!!

It was at that point in my career that working on the trading floor was easy, but on that day it was difficult. We made it difficult on ourselves.

Those Bloody Mary’s down at Ceres hit the spot after the market closed. First one had that shampoo effect that made for a second drunken escapade in just forty eight hours.

Oh to be in your twenties and thirties in the 1990’s. It was a golden age.

Rudolph

 In the back of my mind I was thinking about the 1991 airing of “Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer” being thirty years ago.

I was sitting in an apartment in Oak Park with a group of guys in our early twenties. We had to do a shot every time Rudolph’s nose glowed.

Afterwards we went to the bars on Madison Street until last call. This year I had a couple glasses of wine and was in bed fifteen minutes after Santa left the Island of Misfit Toys.

The new Millennium has brought the cancel culture, Covid, Participation Trophies and Pumpkin Spice.

I’m surprised Rudolph isn’t sitting on a shelf somewhere with Bo and Luke Duke, Archie Bunker and George Jefferson.

I mean come on folks!!

Rudolph has a birth defect and is ridiculed and bullied. Even Santa is a Jag Off to Rudolph! His parents handle it wrong from the get go. The Head Coach is tough and all the other reindeer ban Rudy from their games.

This kind of twentieth century propaganda does not belong in society anymore!

Actually it does!

Young parents make mistakes. It’s hard on them if they have a special needs child and you can say Rudolph symbolizes that. That’s what they did back then. They masked a deformity.

Why have we grown today to accept and promote growth for the handicapped? Because the adults in charge watched “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer!”

Why has bullying been approached and shunned these days? Because we watched Rudolph get bullied!

Why was making everyone conform to the Social Rules so important back then, but today we can pursue a career or lifestyle we like? Because of Rudolph!!

I watched the actions in Christmas Town last night and saw the ugliness that occurred. I also thought about how much I’ve grown up because I watched Rudolph every year since the early 1970’s.

My only advice for Rudolph would be to dump Clarice. Everything started out fine and it was an awesome relationship.

She stood by you during those trying times Rudolph. You even saved her from the Abominable, but eventually she will sleep with another Reindeer from Clarendon Hills.

Run, Run Rudolph!

Thanksgiving Chalkboard

 I didn’t have to join AA or Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. I never needed a therapist or a trip to a retreat or spa.

I turned my shit around when I learned to count my blessings and see the Silver Lining.

My life has seen no tragedy….. just the regular bumps in the road and the ups and downs….. and I am Thankful!

Give me 30 more thanksgiving days and I’ll have had a fruitful life!

I’m thankful for all those that have reached out to make sure I’m in a happy place today.

From the Jews on the Northside, the Irish on the Southside, the blacks on the Westside and the Italians up the street.

That makes me think I’m doing something right and my parents can look down and see that I’m doing well.

So today…. Drink coffee and eat bacon…. Have a morning cocktail….. run on a field or pitch….. listen to music…. Smoke a cigar…. Eat well…. Laugh a lot….. hug a lot…. Take a nap…. Eat more, but whatever you do….. don’t watch a shitty football game or talk about politics!!!

Today is a day to be thankful and forget about all the bullshit that eventually needs a silver lining and to be counted as a blessing!

thanksgiving poem

 Smoking a cigar watching leaves fall out of trees…. Autumn teardrops.

In the spring when life is new leaves blow in the breeze strong and confident. The wind moves them and they sound like fabric blowing on the clothes line.

In November they sound crisp and old as they let go and fall to the ground.

The gray cold sky is the ideal backdrop for the last of the foliage to die on.

Overcast skies in autumn hide the long shadows that the low sun makes…..fitting when winter is forming a grasp on these short days.

The Farmers Almanac says this river that flows near me will freeze soon. Today it’s cold as it rushes along the decaying banks.

Antonio is right when he tells us to enjoy the four seasons!

This mass has ended, go in peace

 

In the autumn of 1966 Cecilia Shepley handed her four month old son to this man in the vestibule of Saint Ita’s.
Back in the day The Bears played at Wrigley Field and Poppa Bear Halas lived in the Edgewater Beach Apartments. His parish was Saint Ita’s, the same church my
Parents attended.
On the Saturday night before a home game the Catholic players on BOTH teams would attend mass with Coach Halas.
After mass Mr. Unitas was walking out next to my parents. He turned to my mom and told her she had a future lineman and asked if he could hold me.
My mom handed me over and Johnny Unitas held me for several minutes and talked with my parents.
The next day he threw a 79 yard TD pass to John Mackey. Went 18/38 for 274 yards. The Bears still won the game, 27-17.
My mom was a Baltimore Colts fan from that day on. She was so happy when they moved to her hometown of Indianapolis. I never had the heart to tell her Johnny U disenfranchised himself from the Colts after they left Baltimore in the middle of the night.

November 14th, 2021

 Most of the time I’ve bulldozed through life. Coffee tastes better and so does bacon when you slow down and enjoy Sunday morning.

I think when the kids get up I’m going to take them to the newsstand on Cermak. It’s time they learn the importance of buying the Sunday papers.

“I’ll take the Times and a Tribune please, Sundays final edition.”

Then they’ll need to learn how to Duke the paper guy a fin. Fold the paper and not

Let them blow away with the cold November winds.

A cold November wind took the Trib out of my grasp in 1979. My dad never used the term “Mother Fucker” often, but his face sure did as his Sunday paper blew across Oak Park Avenue just north of Cermak.

You know he had me chasing every piece of

It in traffic….

The difference between 1979 and 2021. If my paper blows across the cold intersection I’ll use the term mentioned above… followed by a “you gotta be shitting me!”

My dads papers cost a couple bucks and was bigger than the phone book! My papers cost five times as much and is thinner than Karen Carpenter!

Enjoy the middle of November as we gather our bounty and give thanks!

Enjoy the Full Moon on Friday!

Enjoy a Sunday without the frustration of mediocre football

November 18th, 2021

 

I just
Typed three paragraphs….. I read them back
And felt
I was full
Of shit this morning!
That’s not what we need today!
Go have a great day and don’t fuck things up!

November 13th, 2021

 I think waking up and facing a dreary November day is going to be scary enough.

I like today’s quote. It has strong history behind it. Recently it was part of a theme by a Chicago newspaper columnist, turned into a essay, a song and used in graduation speeches.

Eleanor Roosevelt has been credited saying this on many occasions and it has early roots with Waldo, writer Ralphy Emerson.

It’s also Sadie Hawkins Day! A long tradition of when girls would ask boys to the school dance.

Looking back at Sadie Hawkins Day I remember it as an opportunity for the shy girls to shine and take pressure off the chubby boys, me. Everyone was a winner and included at that dance.

The feminist movement, the me too movement and the pride movement have changed the tradition and opened Sadie Hawkins to all sorts of combinations.

So go do something scary today! Well, don’t put yourself in danger and definitely don’t put ketchup on a hot dog!

November 12th, 2021

 I had a dream I was falling and as I gathered myself my Uncle Charlie was there to tell me that was the craziest thing I have ever done!

I woke up on the couch because a third grader is sleeping in my bed. Rolled over and fell right to the floor! Happy Friday!

I’m sure Uncle Charlie slapped my dad on the arm and said, “did you see that?”

Getting a reply, “I’ve seen that big fuck fall many times, but he always gets up!”

I miss the Ceres Cafe French Dip! CBOT alumni know what I’m talking about!

Today can be that early foreshadowing mother fucker of a wintry day before Thanksgiving! Enjoy!

November 11th, 2021

 At the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month…. Lest We forget

November 10th, 2021

 Today is a history lesson. It’s the day I warned you about earlier in the week.

If you put the radio on today you’ll here the song by Gordon Lightfoot that tells of a shipwreck in 1975.

I was in fourth grade when the Edmund Fitzgerald crashed. For some reason the loss of 29 men hit me really hard. I drew pictures of it, I made a model of it. The next week my mom and I walked over to Lake Michigan and threw flowers that we bought at Jewels into the waves.

Today is The United States Marine Corps birthday, November 10th, 1775. Happy Birthday! Thank you for all you do.

Today is also “National Vanilla Cupcake Day.” This is the day we write Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to tell him how he is doing as Governor of Illinois.

Enjoy today…. The meteorologists are calling for a blast of November this weekend! November weather in November? UGH........

November 9th, 2021

 The major theme this morning when I opened social media was blaming.

Several articles, dozens of Tweets and many of my Facebook Friends placed blame on officiating during last nights Bear game.

Let me say I didn’t watch one single play last night. I’m sure it will be the hot topic in the office today surpassing horrible politics and Covid vaccines.

If you are in a position to blame the referee on a loss you must blame yourself for not putting the game away. Blame yourself for poor execution. Blame yourself for lack of preparation. Blame yourself for not practicing fundamentals. Blame

Yourself for not taking care of the little things.

It gets to the point in life when you run out of things to blame.

My parents are both dead…. I can’t blame them!

My old boss in the five year pit is unemployed and unhappy…. I can’t blame him!

My ex wife hasn’t loved me in many years…. I can’t blame her!

The Bears suck… they have the worst owners in the league. The worst stadium. The worst coaches. The worst depth.

Don’t blame me if you’re tired this morning because you stayed up watching a shitty nail biter!

I watched “Yellowstone” again and was asleep by 8:30.

I took the Bears and the +6.5 points so I have no one to blame!

November 8th,2021

 It’s Monday, but it’s going to be a warm Monday….

This week is Veterans Day or Remembrance Day… originating from Armistice Day. It is a day to honor those who fought against tyranny and hatred.

Tonight the Bears are on Monday Night Football. I’ll be watching a documentary on PBS about Bee pollination.

If anyone can make it through this week without hearing “The wreck of the Edmund FitzGerald” they got pretty lucky.

November 7th, 2021

 I’m not one of those guys that gets bullshitted into thinking that I just gained an hour of sleep!

I didn’t gain an hour of anything. I gained several days of not knowing what the hell is going on!
I gained two months of afternoon sunsets.

The reason we decorate our houses like Las Vegas strip clubs every Christmas is to fight the darkness of winter. It works….It works like a punter on fourth down!

“We didn’t get the first down? It’s fourth and twenty on the January 6th yard line…. The three wiseman have left the game and the Shepherds are standing in the cold!”

I despise today, but sometimes you have to suffer to appreciate the good things. Three or four weeks of sunsets after 8:30pm and a week or so of sunrises just before 5:00am…
…..it’s a good return. It is our payoff for enduring dark rush hours with crusty windshields and no bug juice to clean them!
This is why 7/11 has cases of windshield fluid stacked in front of the store every winter.

Go enjoy this short beautiful Sunday. The longer shadows and falling leaves. Enjoy soft sweatshirts that will be tight in six weeks. Sit by the warmth of a fire pit with people you love. Bake cookies and drink Baileys in your coffee! These things are meant to be done when the sun is setting during afternoon pickup and the Final Jeopardy question.

Sooner than we think I’ll write 5:12am and 8:36pm on the bottom left hand corner!

November 6th, 2021

 Today is an awkward day….

On the top right hand corner I was happy when I drew the sun and temperature, but my feelings went south when I copied the sunrise/sunset times on the bottom left.

Today is the last sunset after five o’clock until January 28th. Yeah…. I know…. You’re thinking “thanks fucking a lot for pointing that out!!!”

I quoted George Allen O’Dowd today. It’s time that we have, but it’s time we really can’t waste.

Today when I go around pushing back the hands on my clocks I’m going to want Winter to come and go quickly, but so much good things are going to happen between today and spring!

November 5th, 2021

 It’s going to be a fantastic Friday!

National donut day! My oldman would go get the Sunday papers at the White Hen on South Boulevard in Oak Park and occasionally… well every Sunday he’d grab a package of the Entemann’s chocolate donuts….

For some reason, that he couldn’t explain when he got home…. One was always missing.

White Hen was about a half mile away! That one donut never had a chance making it back to 220 south Lombard.

It’s going to be a beautiful weekend… Shepkids will be home…. No Bears game

On Sunday to muck up the day!

November 4th, 2021

 The thermometer on the old wall is saying twenty eight degrees at four o’clock… this just tells me how much more I’m going to enjoy that first cup of coffee.

When we moved out to Oakbrook Terrace last year I received a new keycard and a key to the crapper. A Key for the Crapper! That’s all I got when I left Chicago after five decades!

The keycard that got me through the turnstiles at the Chicago Board of Trade is a relic. It’s still in my wallet. It doesn’t work, but it’s still there.

Somewhere in my footlocker is the key to my 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Whatever is left of her has been sitting at Victory Auto since 1989. In it the smell of Maxwell Street Polish hopefully still lingers.

I’m running late for my shower and still need to make my bed, but before I know it we will be electing a new president and very soon the 2020’s will be retro…

November 3rd, 2021

 Crisp November morning…. Christmas Carols start today just after four o’clock on 93.9fm. Out of curiosity many of you now will tune in to hear “The First Carol of Christmas Season.”

My money says it’s the Mariah Carey one…

Today is National Sandwich Day! What sandwich shall I pick on this glorious day?

The Ricobenes steak sandwich? An Indiana Pork tenderloin sandwich? An Italian beef sandwich? A Turkey club? A French dip? A Monte Cristo? The Alpine Sub? A meatball sub? A Philly Steak from Monti’s? A fried shrimp and oysta po boy from Shanahans?

The list is endless!!! What is your go to?