September 28th, 2022

     Wednesday morning and I don’t have much to say. I have a lot on my mind, but I don’t have a point to make or a story to tell.

I get to pick up the kids after school today on the other side of Mannheim. I do enjoy that!

I have time to kill so I park very early in the pick up line. I roll down the windows, put the seat back and take a quick power nap.

Last week a yummy mummy caught me snoring and maybe drooling a little. It was that great of a nap.

I’m like Wooderson in “Dazed and Confused.” Though I’m the older divorced dad and not the twenty year old hanging out with high school kids.

“That's what I love about these elementary school moms, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”

When I started picking up George ten years ago the mommies all had bad ankle tattoos that they probably got on a drunk night in college. Shamrocks, rainbows, panda bears…..

Now the mommies all have cursive words on their forearms.

“Peace” “Love” “Injustice”

I was thinking of grabbing a Sharpie and writing “Fellatio” and “Orgasm” on my forearms.

So that’s my afternoon plan…. picking up the redheads, smiling at mommies twenty years younger than me and making some pizzas.

Autumn sure has made a grand entrance this week. Christmas is less than three months away!

September 27th, 2022

       The other day I posted a picture of Hazel and I sitting together on my couch. It was “National Daughter Day” and many of you did the same.

All of our daughters are vibrant, confident and strong girls. We are all so fucking blessed. We really are.

On that day that we celebrated the young women we are raising, I watched this story out of Iran. A twenty two year old girl was killed by the Koran Police for not wearing her head gear properly.

Let’s make this clear right now….I never get political on The Morning Chalkboard… this has nothing to do with Geopolitics or Muslims or religion. I can give two shits about Iran in the first place.

I spent my newspaper route money in November of 1979 on an “Ayatollah Assahola” poster! Stuck it right up between Farrah Fawcett and Walter Payton. So I’ve hated these jagoffs for over forty years.

I’m writing about a picture of someone’s daughter. A vibrant, confident and strong girl located in the Middle East. Her dad lost his daughter over the weekend because her shishab wasn’t covering her face properly.

There was a second picture of this baby girl lying in a coma in a hospital bed. That is the point of this morning’s chalkboard.

Our daughters are playing sports, reading books, listening to shitty music and blossoming into strong women.

These baby girls in most of the Middle East can’t do that.

This isn’t my fight!

A murdered Muslim girl on the other side of the world isn’t my cause, BUTT….

…. I pain for Mahsa Amini’s Oldman who can’t post a picture of his baby girl anymore.

No Prom pictures! No graduating from Nursing School pictures! No tailgating at Northwestern pictures and No Engagement pictures!

This isn’t my fight!

I wont be thinking about Mahsa Amini the next time I post a picture of my gorgeous little redhead. I just need to remember never to take it for granted every time that I do.

We are so lucky that we get to fight, get the right, lose the right over American Women’s right for abortion. On the other side of the world women get rocks thrown at them if they know how to spell “camel.”

I’m just a fifty six year old dad who has a daughter in fourth grade. My heart would turn to stone if I couldn’t hold her in my arms tomorrow…….

C A M E L

September 26th, 2022

      I was leaving the Bear game yesterday and I lost my buddy in the crowd and then I turned down the wrong aisle in the parking garage.

After I figured out my bearings I doubled back towards my tailgate. I passed a group of guys drinking beers and one of them said, “You look lost, have a beer!” And he handed me a fresh bottle of beer out of his cooler.

I told him this was the best part of my day… his act of kindness. I shook his hand, high fived his buddies and we all screamed “Bear Down!”

I walked away thinking that I need to pass along the kindness shown to me.

A cold bottle of beer from a stranger will always make life better.

It’s the last week of September and yesterday was the last day with 12 hours of daylight until next year. The Bears are a horrible 2-1 team and the White Sox rolled over and died last week.

The sweater drawer is going to open and close all week and the extra blanket is on call. So let’s finish the month of September on a good note and pass kindness forward.

September 25th, 2022

 I picked this quote because I deal with a sad person everyday. Then I sat down to write about it and had a brain fart.

I don’t want to talk about sadness today. So I’ll leave it at that….

Always replace sadness with sweetness.

Bear Down Chicago Bears!

September 24th, 2022

       A little Billy Shakes on the first crisp Saturday of Autumn. The quote is from “Hamlet” and has always stood out as not just the central theme of the play, but the uncertainty of life as well.

We know what we are doing on Saturday, September 24th in the year 2022, but we don’t have a clue what we will be doing on September 24th, 2023.

We have zero clue what comedy or tragedy awaits us in the coming months.

I thought maybe I’ll live the next twelve months in a Melodrama. So I looked up the definition of Melodrama.

- a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.

This is exactly how I live my life!

The drama is sensational, I hangout with eclectic friends and every morning I take the road to excitement. This is how I will live my days…..

Unlike Ophelia, I know what my future brings.

I do see something bright these days….. Less plexiglass!

The plastic spit guards that have barricaded our lives the last two years are finally starting to disappear.

Maybe we can come up with Shakespearean symbolism to describe the plexiglass period of the early 2020’s?

“Thou shall bringest down thy flimsy fake film of glass and breath thy filth and disgust onto my formidable facade. For the time has cometh to knockdown what shields our Insecurities and lack of trust from within our deeper anxiousness.”

“Jumbo” Act 56, Scene 9

Hop Stop in Riverside today… I get to drink beer with my friends and exaggerate life in a sensational setting. Something for everyone, a comedy tonight!

September 23rd, 2022

   We always complain about politicians not being honest or someone at work. A neighbor or a priest, but I’ve learned the only one that matters is a fat kid born on the northside of Chicago during the Johnson Administration.

In Chicago we have a fine line when it comes to the truth. Either we lie to you or we take the liberty of bullshiting you.

Bullshiting is like a fib or a white lie. Something that at the present time…you don’t need to know what’s going on.

When you lie you better have a good memory of what you said. Your tongue doesn’t have a memory, but your brain sure as hell does.

Which means you can’t lie to yourself…. You can’t even bullshit yourself.

The little kid on the television screen up at Santa’s workshop. He’s the little boy in “Polar Express” repeating “it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!”

Every time I watch that movie with the Shepkids I tell them, “that kid fucked himself! Santa won’t let him off!”

“Kids….. three things that you can’t lie to, it’s impossible! God, yourself and Santa Claus!”

So that piece of crap Mayor or Governor. The jagoff broker on the other side of the pit. That neighbor that still has your weedwhacker and Father O’Blithering… three people know they are all liars and eventually… THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL……

First weekend of Autumn…. May your football and rugby team leave victorious. May your crockpot fill your home with warmth. May your blankey reach from your toes to your nose and may your lips say “I Love You” to many of those you see.

…and do your homework when voting for judges!

September 22nd, 2022

                I think I pulled a hamstring yesterday with all the dancing on EWF Day.

It’s over though…. The Summer of ‘22. We just banged out another chapter, another season and another stack of memories.

Time to move on and get ready for Charlie Brown season. We get to stay up for the Great Pumpkin. We get to see Charlie Brown panic on Thanksgiving and again when he is in charge of the doomed Christmas show.

Just like last years Charlie Brown season. Everything works out!

Sure Our hero gets another bag full of rocks when he goes Trick or Treating, but he handles it.

After putting together a failed Thanksgiving dinner, which I thought turned out amazing…. everyone piles into the back of the station wagon and heads to Grammas house.

Let’s think about Gramma’s reaction when the kids show up and she meets the Lesbian couple and the black kid. Charles Schultz was way ahead of his time.

And then Christmas time?

Linus belts out the Bible to explain the meaning of Christmas! Solid move…..

Charlie Brown Season….. we look for the promise of hope with the arrival of a Pumpkin Ghost. We gather friends and prepare a meal with what we can throw together in a pinch and we take a scrawny little Christmas tree nailed to a couple boards and find beauty in all that it offers.

Three 24 minute long cartoons nail the holiday season. We are all nerdy bald headed kids. Our self esteem is tested everyday. Stress shows up in many different ways, but we trudge through and finish what we started.

The first ten minutes Charlie Brown faces an ordeal and in the next fourteen minutes it’s solved. What he worried about at the beginning of the show he laughs about during the closing credits.

Today the closing credits for Summer of 2022 are scrolling across the screen. The issues facing us in June are an instant memory and a conquered foe.

Bring it on Lucy… this is the year we kick that football.

September 21st, 2022

      How glorious the summer ends on a day when the winds calm the fires on our great earth.

     We walk down the streets, sit at our desks and run our daily routine thinking about golden dreams of shiny days and never was there a cloudy day. 
        Tomorrow is the first day of autumn. Oktoberfest is in the air, football on the fields and sweater drawers getting unpacked.
            The newness of pumpkin spice will wear off sooner than later as the shadows lengthen across the lawn.
                Grocery store lights caught my attention when I was a kid. You never notice them in the summer, but when the days get shorter that bright orangy “Jewels” sign stuck out at 5:00pm.
            Don’t forget to listen to Earth, Wind and Fire today. I’m going to move myself and glide like a 747. Maybe take a fantasy trip to boogie wonderland because it is after the love has gone.
                                      So grab some JumboLove and Let’s Groove Tonight……

September 20th, 2022

      I grabbed a sport coat out of the closet yesterday. When I reached in the pocket I found a funeral card for someone who passed last year. I took it out and put it on my dresser.

I don’t get my sport coats cleaned every time I wear them. In the past I have found a half dozen cocktail straws in the pocket, cocktail napkins and every once in a while a bottle cap.

There was a time when I would put on a suit or sport coat for something fun. A wedding, a nice dinner, the opera or a show, but lately the dress clothes only come out for wakes and funerals.

When we were kids we collected baseball cards and now fifty years later we collect funeral cards.

The day will come when the Shepkids will design a card for me. I don’t want an English Blessing or a Bible quote on the back of mine. I want song lyrics.

I want all my friends to leave the funeral home earwormed with a song.

Also, Instead of my birthdate and death date I’ll put…..

“588-2300 Empire”

So not only will you be earwormed you might consider new carpeting for the bedroom.

I just need to figure out the song for the back. The picture on the front is easy. I can use the selfie I took in the shower when I was putting my first Match dot com account together.

The song…. What song will be an appropriate earworm at my wake?

I got it!

“Ooh baby, I'm hot just like an oven,

I need some lovin'

And baby, I can't hold it much longer

It's getting stronger and stronger

When I get that feeling

I want sexual healing

Sexual healing, oh baby

Makes me feel so fine.”

That’s it….. nothing from the Bible or a famous poet. It will be Marvin Gaye, I’m going all out Marvin Gaye.

Today might be the last 90 handle for the summer. This global warming has definitely lengthened the GoldBond season.

I hope when you turn your radio on for “two fer Tuesday” you hear two songs from your favorite musical artist.

Think of me if you hear “What’s Goin On” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

It’s also BOGO at Labarra….. grab a couple pizzas tonight and celebrate the end of summer with a thin crust.

September 19th, 2022

     Around 1993 I went to Service Merchandise and bought a wooden unit that held five hundred CD’s. It cost $175 and that thing took over an entire wall.

By then most of my record albums were long gone. In a matter of eight years I went from six milk crates of vinyl to a book shelf of plastic containers holding small silver discs.

I’m embarrassed to tell you the last album I bought. It was at Val’s shop on South Boulevard. It was that Outfield album where Josie went on her long distant vacation. The first CD I bought was SuperTramp’s “Breakfast in America.”

If you look back at it now the CD era lasted about eighteen years. 1986 to around 2004ish. That was around the time of Napster and the iPod. In a matter of twenty years I went from milk crates of albums to a shiny little box that fit in my pocket.

The Service Merchandise shelving unit hit the garbage when I performed Exile East of Mannheim. One Saturday afternoon during Covid I took all my CD’s and put them in a binder and put all the cases in the recycle bin.

The six CD changer that I bought at MusicCraft in 1989 rarely plays music. Sitting on top of it is a record player.

All the music I ever owned is on my phone….

We can’t cure cancer or end hunger. We can’t stop hating each other, but we figured out how to fit six milk crates of record albums into our pocket.

And my dad who thought he was cool when he bought a car with an eight track player. Judy Collins and Barry Manilow are not cool dad!

September 18th, 2022

 Sitting here on my balcony with a light breeze and an overcast sky. It is the last Sunday of Summer and the leaves are showing their wear and tear.

Last week I took out the worn out summer annuals and replaced them with mums and autumnal colors. Maybe a silver lining is this longer summer into October? It gives me a second crop of flowers for the JumboBalcony.

I made my coffee in a French press this morning. So I’m a fancy fuck sitting up here throwing nuts at squirrels.

Tonight the Chicago Bears meet the Greenbay Packers up in Lambeau Field. I use to hate the Packers, but with wear and tear on me through the years I can give two shits.

But still….. Go Bears!

You’d be surprised how many Packer families live in Chicagoland. My dad always said they are the remnants of the old Chicago Cardinals. Old man Halas ran the Cardinals out of town after the 1959 Season. Since the Bears were the only team in town the Cardinal fans switch allegiance to the Packers. That’s how much Halas was hated.

My dad grew up a Cardinal football fan, but by the time I showed up he gave two shits. He did root for the Baltimore Colts as well. Seems like Don Shepley is the common denominator for teams that leave their original homes.

The Bears are a horseshit organization run by a dysfunctional family. The only thing that keeps me emotionally tied are the memories of Dick Butkus and Walter Payton.

So I guess I’m living in the past!

Enjoy your Sunday Funday and sing it loud, sing it proud……

Bear down, Chicago Bears

Make every play clear the way to victory!

Bear down, Chicago Bears

Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly

We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation

With your 'T' formation

Bear down, Chicago Bears

And let 'em know why you're wearing the crown

You're the pride and joy of Illinois

Chicago Bears, bear down!

September 17th, 2022

        Is it a home or just a place to live? Was it just a job or a solid career? Was love an action or just a word?

There are days in life that I failed, days when I got beat, days when I didn’t meet expectations and days that I sabotaged myself.

That doesn’t mean that I have failed in life. That doesn’t mean that I’m not successful and I don’t need to lower my expectations to define my success.

Monday morning I will watch the Queens funeral and Monday afternoon I will attend a wake for a dear friends father. Both of them ended up in the same place. Both of them died leaving a successful legacy.

I sat at a breakfast table with my dad when I first started on the trading floor. I was a runner for Index Futures. I told him I was going to make a ton of money trading soybeans and treasury bonds. I will drive a brand new car and he will get a new Cadillac. I’ll have a beautiful house and a gorgeous wife.

My dad didn’t know who the Talking Heads were, but he wiped the egg from his mouth and closely quoted David Byrne.

“Oh yeah son… how will you get there?

My dad had a pretty good idea back then in the diner how successful his son would turn out.

“Let me tell you something Moose. All those people standing on your trading floor are blue collar people! All of them!”

He was right and all those blue collar jobs are gone.

I don’t have a beautiful house, but I’ve made a comfortable home. I drive a twenty five year old truck that gets me to where I’m going. The beautiful wife was an illusion that gave me three beautiful children.

And the job? I never made the millions trading beans and bonds, but I outlasted 98% of the people that tried. I sandwiched a wonderful career between Index Futures and Futures International.

So on the day I go to the place where Don Shepley, Mickey Ryan and her majesty, The Queen are staying…. I’ll have defined my success.

I worked my dick off, used my heart with full capacity and found warmth where I hung my coat and laid my head.

It’s Monte Cristo Day… the best ones are always found at the counter of a busy diner.

It’s the last weekend of summer so go do summer stuff before the cold dark days of winter set in and all the traffic detours are gone.

And yeah, you learned this week that my mom called me Pumpkinhead and my Oldman called me Moose… the rest of you can stick with Shep, Jumbo or Secret Lover.

September 16th, 2022

 I’m not really sure when I finally became an adult. I always say I wasn’t a man until the day I met George Shepley, but when I became an adult…. I don’t know.

I was around twenty six when someone younger called me sir. I was at Gossage Grill early in the morning with the guys. We went to the bars earlier and stopped for a late night cheeseburger.

A group of younger kids came in behind us…. “Pardon me sir, is someone sitting here?”

Sir?

Boy that made me feel old… at the ripe age of twenty six.

It’s crazy how tall my dad and all his colleagues were in 1971 and by 1991 I was having martinis with all those little fellas.

Overnight I went from hiding under the dining room table listening to railroad stories to sitting at the dining room table telling railroad guys all my Board of Trade stories.

Life is a beautiful journey…. I miss all those family friends that I called Uncle. Now I’m the family friend called uncle.

Yesterday was the last 7:00pm sunset until next March. It will be a Saturday and you might be hungover. It’s the day after Saint Patrick’s Day. At least the Irish can celebrate on a Friday night next year.

So go buy some logs for the fire pit. It’s gonna be a long cold winter.

However this weekend will be warm so don’t put the GoldBond away just yet. Enjoy the middle of September while we have sunsets after 6:00pm.

September 15th, 2022

     I received several texts about yesterday’s chalkboard. Curiosity about Angel numbers, cigarette smoke and my mom tucking me in from heaven.

Simple answer…..

I can’t grieve the loss of my parents if I don’t miss them. I can’t get sad that they are gone if they are always around.

Maybe my mom isn’t there to put butter and jelly on my toast, but I’ll always have the memory of her telling me,

“You need to learn how to do this Pumpkinhead! Mommy won’t always be around to do it for you!”

My dad doesn’t take me on Saturday morning errands anymore, but he’s sitting in Betty the Blazer with me when I’m running mine.

At the end of their lives my dad ended up in Pittsburgh and my mom was living in Indianapolis.

My dad was 460 miles away from his front porch in Oak Park. My mom had mile marker 222 on I-65 and 184 miles between her and her Pumpkinhead.

Yeah…. That’s funny isn’t it? Pumpkinhead! Well she gave birth to me so she has that right….

Anyway…….

You’d think heaven is further than four hundred and sixty miles or one hundred and eighty four miles…

It isn’t…..

Heaven is as close as a prayer or a memory.

And that’s how a divorced dad deals with the death of his parents!

We all deal with grief differently… I don’t have time to deal with it. So Don and Cecilia visit me on a daily basis.

I would appreciate if they could tamper with the stop lights when I’m driving to work in the morning.

That’s something they haven’t perfected yet, but every once in awhile I’ll get five or six green lights in a row and know mom and dad are near.

September 14th, 2022

 I woke up this morning at 2:22 to the smell of a cigarette. My mom is like clock work. She came by to let me know everything is good.

I’ve erased three of these next paragraphs and I’m a man of few words this morning.

Maybe that’s why my mom came down from heaven….

.....be a man of action and less words today.

So enjoy a gorgeous Humpday… it will be a perfect day in Chicagoland. Seven o’clock sunsets are nearing their end for this year. They’ll be back next spring….

September 13th, 2022

 I got another hateful text just before bedtime last night. I can’t fathom what goes through this person’s soul and heart to regard me with such disgust.

At first I would reply back with a volley of hate that outgunned whatever I had received. I worked on a trading floor. I was trained to deliver a destructive saying quickly and efficiently.

Before Don Shepley died I promised him I’d be a better ex husband. Last year John Wagner insisted that I forgive and work harder at being the stronger person.

I’ve been a man of my word.

The one thing I’ve decided is to reply in Shakespearean. I will bring out my inner Keats and Percy Bysshe and occasional Twain in response.

Last night when I turned off the light I looked out the window. I saw the bright moon that just came off the weekend being full. I thought about people that I love looking at the same moon somewhere else. People who aren’t with me, but can see the same thing I’m looking at right now and that made me happy.

The person who hates me doesn’t have the same eye. She can’t look out and see the glory in the moon.

That’s sad.

If you don’t possess goodness you can’t see the beauty around you. Hate keeps the blinds shut and consumes your heart.

So the next time I receive the spew of hate I will not reply and intensify her pain.

I will be like Billy Shakes….

“Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

But for the record, matter lives dumbass… I mean Dumbass lives matter.

(This blog is a therapeutic tool for a divorced dad who worked on a trading floor. Not all posts will be shits and giggles. Sometimes you need to approach the painful parts in daily life.)

September 12th, 2022

 Saturday I told you to live like it’s the last day of your life. Everyday should be treated like it’s your September 10th.

Today is your September 12th. This was the day twenty one years ago that brought a nation together.

We prayed together, cried together, did shots together and we lifted each other upward. There was an eagerness to throw down our differences and pick up a shovel and dig out.

Live everyday like it’s September 10th and keep the spirit of September 12th in your heart. Sandwich the grief with love from the 10th and togetherness from the 12th.

A year ago today heaven was filled with the soul of Wags…. Not a day has passed without being WAGStrong….. he had the opportunity to die before he died.

Yes, you read that correctly….

When he came back from the first death he brought back a deeper love of the Holy Spirit. He told us all that the Holy Spirit demands of us to forgive each other.

Powerful message and a gift from God. In life and in death John Wagner was a gift. Always stay WAGStrong and try hard to forgive the assholes in your life.

Yes….. even the one from Hensdale.

It’s a dreary Autumnal Monday… a win is a win and the Bears pulled one out of their backside.

Pay forward with the Spirit of the 12th today…….

September 11th, 2022

 I was watching a movie recently that had a character that was dying. Over and over I’m hearing “he only has days to live” again “he only has days to live.”

I sat there watching this guy who had “only days left to live” and thought….days left? That’s all we really do have!

DAYS….

Now you’re thinking, “Jeez, Shepley you’ve been in a dark period these last few posts!”

Last week when the Queen died she completed 35,204 days. Twenty one years ago today a guy I knew died on his 12,102 day.

So an Irish kid from Brooklyn lived 33 years and The Queen of England 96 years.

This morning I woke up on my 20,506 day. I wouldn’t mind kicking out another 10,000.

My point this morning isn’t for you to wake up with Debbie Downer. I’m just trying to put a different look at living life.

I’m probably going to be talking about life and death matters on Monday as well. Tomorrow is the first death anniversary of someone who stuck around for 20,735 days.

WAGS

Like Don Shepley always said, “Work your ass off son, enjoy the solemn time, trudge through the dark times and try not to be an asshole!”

So that’s all I’m trying to do with these precious days that I have left.

….And maybe try different ice cream flavors from time to time.

Bear Down Bear fans! Be a Grabowski’s today! Cherish the days left that the Bears play on the lake.

It’s been 13,377 day since SuperBowlXX….

September 10th, 2022

 The quote today is from Elizabeth the Great from her speech after the Islamic terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Today is September 10th… September 10th was the last full day for over 3,000 people twenty one years ago.

None of them knowing it was their last day.

I went to work on that Monday and played softball that night at Ridgeland Commons with my Wild Turkeys.

None of us know when our September 10th will be. We might not know when it will be, but we have an idea what we will be doing that day.

How? Just

Do what you do!

Do what you love everyday. Don’t skip a day…. If you are doing what you love… where you love… with those you love.

When your September 10th arrives those left to grieve will say you were doing what you do best…..Love!

Alright… no more sappy shit! Go out and give in to small temptations!

Go to the bakery and get a cannoli. Stop in the cigar shop. Buy that new purse or pair of shoes. Get a beer at the tavern. Grab your lover and listen to Starland Vocal Band.

You Be You, because it’s September 10th. Live everyday like September 10th.

Take the dogs for a walk in Park Slope Brooklyn and tuck your family in for the night. Because that’s what you loved to do OB… and that’s what OB did on his September 10th…

September 9th, 2022

       Yesterday was the end of the Second Elizabethan Era.

So I dug into her deep vault of quotes and pulled out one fitting for the period we are currently living in.

When I was writing her quote on the chalkboard I was thinking about my father. The Queen of England and a Railroad Draftsman/mechanical engineer ended up in the same place.

In fact I can see my dad having breakfast with the queen on a regular basis.

When the Queen has her first visit with Sir Winston Churchill he will say, “Welcome to Eternal Rest your majesty. When you have the time I would like to introduce you to a dear friend, an American by the name of Donald Shepley.”

….And that will be the beginning of the eternal friendship between Don and Lilibet.

I can see my dad telling the Queen how to put her clotted cream and jam on her scone already.

The point I’m making here is that we all end up together in heaven. From street people to CEO’s. From Jews to Christians. Dark skin and light skin. The Royal Family and The Shepley family.

We all struggle together for a better future. We might as well band together while we are struggling so we can enjoy eternal rest together.

Because what I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older… everyone around me dies. Sooner than later….

For the rest of my life I have the queen dying on September 8th, Jimmy O’Brien dying on September 11th and John Wagner dying on September 12th.

Three death anniversary that I will morn until I create my own death anniversary….

….and on that day I’ll have a cocktail with Don Shepley, OB, Wags and Elizabeth.

Pretty cool thing to look forward to.

I didn’t have room for Friday’s sunrise and sunset this morning on the chalkboard.

The sun will start to shine across Lake Michigan at 6:25 this morning and will set over the western suburbs at 7:10.

Enjoy the temptations that the weekend brings… Go Bears!

September 8th, 2022

    Not much left to be tempted by these days. Yellow lights are always tempting. Cookies are tempting. A glass of bourbon or a cigar.

Free tickets to a Sox game aren’t tempting at this point in the season. Booty calls at 12:42am aren’t tempting with George down the hall and out of town job offers aren’t tempting when you do what you love at a place that you love.

I’m sitting here at 4:00am earwormed with that Squeeze song. You know the one I’m thinking about ! ? ! ?

The temptation of pulling out the crockpot this weekend is huge. Bears kickoff the season and slow cooked meat is calling my name.

Live a little this weekend and flirt with temptation and if it’s a good one…. Call me. I might be tempted to join you……