December 29th, 2023

 The last Friday of the year. I’m going to lightly tread these last few hours of 2023.

I’m not going into 2024 with great expectations. The stupid shit from 2023 is going to sneak its way through the front door and into the New Year.

Here I go, I gotta tell you that I just erased five horseshit paragraphs.

I’m going to listen to the rain and call my parents before my alarm goes off. Let’s just work on finishing this week and worry about finishing the year later.

Maybe I’ll just sit on a park bench and watch shit do stuff?

December 28th, 2023

I often chalk about my age group and how we are in a time where are parents are leaving in droves. Christmas weekend I had a dear friend who lost her mom and a colleague who lost her dad. Today I talk about someone we lost almost forty years ago.

Yesterday was the birthday of one of my high school classmates. The first kid to pass away from the Cathedral Class of nineteen eighty-four.

My high school buddy was one of the top academic students in our class and an accomplished cross-country runner. He became sick his freshman year in college and went to heaven the next year.

I look back at this kid often as my first classmate to pass away, but he was also a son and a brother in a strong family. They didn’t get to witness the magic their sibling and child was meant to bring into the world.

Why did one of the brightest stars in so many lives get extinguished so soon?

This kid wasn’t just a sophomore at Wabash. Parents lost their twenty-year-old son that brought joy to the family. Brothers and sisters in their teens and early twenties lost a sibling who gave them support and love for barely two decades.

The word “lost” came up twice in that last paragraph. Let’s try and use the word “gain” several times in the next few paragraphs.

I can’t speak for the family or the other people that knew this guy.

What did I gain when I was going on twenty, losing my first high school classmate?

Let me tell you a quick story about a cold February night in 1983. Me, this kid and a couple other guys from our junior class went out. We went to some event in downtown Indianapolis that was boring, so we went looking for something else to do.

When we were coming to a red light at a pedestrian crossing. I started to take a step off the curb into the street when this kid grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back onto the sidewalk.

An oncoming Metro bus was speeding along the bus lane that I haphazardly stepped into. This kid probably saved me from getting clipped by the bus.

Later that night the four of us found something to do. We ended up getting in trouble for underage drinking at Butler University. That’s a story for another chalk.

That’s just an example of why this kid was around for two decades. He helped and supported everyone he touched.

But why was he gone so soon?

Here is where I start talking about what I gained from this short friendship.

For the rest of my life, I had an example. This kid is part of the mortar that has built my foundation. This straight “A” kid is another reason why I have straight “F’s” in life. He slapped some concrete on my base before he left for heaven.

This classmate from Cathedral was the best example of a Foundation built on Faith, built on Family, built on Friendship.

I’ve never run a cross country race in my life, but this competitor made me a runner for the rest of my life.

Just those half a dozen years we knew each other… he touched me and stayed with me for almost forty more.

This guy never had a career or a family. This kid never had a chance to watch his parents’ age. This kid never experienced the highs and lows that life throws.

But I am better at my career. I am a better father. I was a better son who eventually buried proud parents. I deal with the lows and enjoy the highs because this kid gave me an example. This good kid made me a better man. That was why this kid came into MY life.

Life is full of loss, but it is what we gain from it that makes us stronger.

I hope this post fills up with fond stories and memories about the first student to pass away from the Cathedral class of ‘84.

When I get to heaven, I want to run five miles with this kid. Then when we are finished, I want to split a couple Moosehead’s with him and thank him for the mortar.

I hope you had a good heavenly birthday Matt.

December 27th, 2023

  Every first of the month I see this montage of news anchors saying that they can’t believe it’s already the first of this month or that month.

This week we will see the collection in which they will be saying how unbelievable that it’s already the end of the year.

We get the point, time flies quickly.

I often throw future dates on the grabber line on the Chalkboard. They often seem so far away on chalk, but they usually appear in real life before we know it.

Today’s grabber dates are Easter and Labor Day. Since we just celebrated the birth of Jesus I thought I’d use Easter as a marker. We just began winter so why not time out when next summer ends.

The Resurrection of Jesus is just over three months away. Christmas was comfortable in Chicagoland this year with temperatures in the fifties. Expect to wear winter coats over your Easter dresses next Spring. Leave your bonnet in the closet.

Sunsets are starting to creep later this week. By Labor Day we will start noticing the summer sunsets fading quickly.

I used a quote this morning from Ralph Waldo…. This is easier said than done Mr. Emerson.

I’m going to let you know a secret Mr. Big Shot Poet and Philosopher. I can have all the patience time allows, but tomorrow will be yesterday last week. Next month will be last year and this decade will be a flashback from the past in a time when I’m gone.

When I’m gone?

Many of us had loved ones that went gone in 2023. Don’t shit yourself here, but think about how weird it is when you look at how the nineteen nineties are already thirty years ago.

Someday some of us are going to be saying the same thing about the twenty twenties.

Some of us won’t.

Some of us will be gone.

We will be those relatives that are gone.

Which means I don’t have time to be a dickhead or a douchebag. I don’t have time to be pissed off that the White Sox, the Blackhawks and the Bears all suck. I don’t have time to worry about replacing Betty the Green Blazer with some milk crate with an extension cord.

I do have time to watch the shadows of January adjust to the sun. I do have time to feed the squirrels from my balcony. I do have time to pray for a sick relative or a depressed colleague. I do have time to read the next John Young novel.

Though I don’t have time to spend at any red lights or in the long lines at Costco. I’m betting hell is full of red fucking lights and slow cashiers at checkout.

If I’m lucky, I’ll have twenty seven or twenty eight New Years Eves left to celebrate. I’ll bet that I’m asleep by eleven o’clock on twenty two of them.

Not because I’m boring, but because I give two shits. It’s just another year. It just means I’m further away from my parents changing my diaper and a day closer to my children sending me to a place where a stranger changes my diaper.

In the meantime…… I’m going to yell at my kids for doing stupid shit. I’m going to go to work and bust my ass. I’m going to pay my bills and I’m going to get Betty’s oil changed.

Oh my goodness gracious!

I’ve got to come up with a quick solution, a quick plan, a New Year’s Resolution before this weekend.

Here is my New Year’s Resolution for 2024.

I’m going to worry less and pray more. I’m going to hug and kiss a shitload of people these next twelve months. I’m going to pop in places I haven’t popped in lately. I’m going to swear more and rearrange the day for woke people. I’m going to sit down more when I go for walks and just watch shit do stuff.

You know what watching shit do stuff is?

Right?

It’s life baby!!!

Life is basically shit doing stuff.

I’m going to live 2024 to the Benny Hill theme song and not a dramatic piece from a John William’s score.

Things I won’t be doing in 2024. Putting ketchup on a hotdog, voting Democrat in November, pissing myself when the Cubs beat the Sox or the Packers beat the Bears and I’ll probably still use the same belt loop to hold my trousers up on December 27th, 2024.

Regardless what 2024 brings, I know one thing…..

……”I'm gonna keep on lovin' you,

'Cause it's the only thing I wanna do,

I don't wanna sleep, I just wanna keep on lovin' you!”

December 26th, 2023

 The Christmas of 2023… I did four loads of laundry. I didn’t have to put on a nice pair of slacks and a Christmas sweater.

Christmas of 2023… I wore a pair of Houston Oilers sweat socks, sweat shorts and my new Fiji Rugby sweatshirt.

It was a nice mellow Christmas with no schedule to abide by.

Christmas is over and the dreaded four day week is here. Dreaded because short weeks always seem longer.

Enjoy your Boxing Day and the rest of the post Christmas cleanup.

December 25th, 2023

 Scrooge picked a good morning to clean the crap out of his heart. Maybe it took a couple nightmares to scare the living shit out of him, but those ghosts did the job.

I took a long walk by myself last night around Riverside. I looked at the Christmas lights. I looked at the festivities through dining room windows and I admired the homes that lit luminaries along their walks.

One year my Oldman gave me the task of getting the sand for his luminaries. I still had shopping to do for myself. So I went down to North Riverside Mall and then doubled back towards the Forest Park Mall.

The Forest Park Mall was built in an old WWII bomb factory located at Roosevelt and DesPlaines, near the Jewish cemetery. My dad loved the fact that they built bombs for hitler at a factory by Jewish cemeteries.

I went to the Courtesy Hardware store at the mall to pick up the sand for my dad.

I got home to find twenty four paper bags and candles sitting on the front porch and orders to finish the job.

It was raining that Christmas. Like I mentioned the other day on the Chalkboard. I don’t remember if it was Christmas of ‘86 or ‘87 or ‘88. I will just say that it was a Christmas from the late eighties.

It took me about an hour to get the bags filled and lined along the sidewalks at 220 S. Lombard. My dad told me I did a fine job as he lit the candles.

The next morning, Christmas morning, my Oldman asked me what I did with the rest of the sand that I didn’t use. I put the bag in a corner of the garage. The Oldman put on his shoes and walked across the backyard. He brought the bag of sand back into the house.

Then he asked me to join him to the front of the house. When we got to the front stoop I saw the luminaries all gathered up.

My dad was still holding the remains of the ten pound bag behind his back.

“Son, can you take these used luminaries to the garbage for me?”

I picked the first one up and it felt like a brick. I tore open the bag and found a stone with a spent candle in the middle.

My Oldman moved the bag from behind his back to show me the bag of Quickrete that I bought on Christmas Eve.

“This is what we get when we send a boy to do a man’s job!”

We had twenty four bag shaped stones laying on our front stoop.

Remember it was raining that Christmas….

…the bag said, “just add water!”

That next summer my dad used the six or seven best luminary bag rocks around the front porch. Several of them remained excellent candle holders. The others were used to keep the Sunday Tribune and Sun Times from blowing away.

Maybe my dad found purpose from my mistake, but I think he really kept those stone luminaries to bust my balls well into the nineties.

I didn’t have any nightmares about ghosts last night, but I did have this memory that I share with you.

I’m going to spend Christmas Day in sweats and do laundry. Watch Christmas shows and listen to The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge because that’s what my dad did Christmas mornings. After he busted my balls for using concrete in the luminaries.

Happy Christmas all you Chalkheads….

…..Merry Christmas, baby, you sure did treat me nice.

I can’t afford to buy you the gifts from the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” They cost almost fifty grand.

I can’t even put the smile on the sun today, but I will pray that peace and joy fill your hearts every day….

Christmas Eve Posts from the Past

                                                                          2022

Many of us have a shitload of things to do in the next 24 hours. Don’t lose focus….

Things will all fall into place, but make sure someone keeps Baby Jesus from kicking off his blanket. Swaddle him tightly and make sure the shepherds clean the sheep shit off the neighbors lawn.

The most common post among all of you is the joy that you are safely together with the people you love. The pictures of dads hugging daughters home from school. The pictures of smiles around the dining room table. The family playing a guitar and singing together.

This is Christmas!

We are making cookies in Noblesville. We are watching “Love Actually” in Elmhurst. We are listening to Dean Martin in Bridgeport. We are taking a walk with our grandparents in Gloucestershire. We are making cookies in Logan Square.

This is Christmas!

The market closed yesterday and the lads at work poured bourbon and cherished our integrity and energy. We wished each other a Happy Christmas when suddenly a racket entered the trading room as Fritz and Hazel ran in and gave me a hug.

This is Christmas!

I leave you with the sermon from the end of my favorite Christmas movie, “The Bishops Wife.”

“Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking.

Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child's cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven't forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts.

But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. Its his birthday we're celebrating. Don't let us ever forget that.

Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth.”

Merry Christmas everyone, I love you all…… Jumbo!

2021

Uncertainty and ugliness loom beyond our front door, but as long as we keep it out of our heart we will muddle through somehow.

Let this all soak in today…. No matter how big or small. How happy or sad you may be. If you love Christmas or despise it.

It is the time of year that our memories are the strongest. We often say to let go of the past. Don’t live in the past. Don’t dwell on the past….. BUTT (that’s a big but)

Not on this holy of holidays. Let the memories unwrap and bring joy to your heart. Wipe tears off your face and smile through it! Because someday we will all be home together!

My trusty Day Calculator tells me it’s been 737,791 days since a carpenter took his young bride on a journey that stopped in a barn. 737,791 days since the Christ child brought light to the world.

2020

Believe........

2019

Big night tonight for Santa Claus as he shares his passion for giving and spreading the spirit of love!

We won’t have a white Christmas, but at one point the night will be silent and the faithful will come to see the birth of the child who brings hope... if you are willing to believe.

2017

Some of us celebrate The birth of Jesus and some of us are going out for Chinese after 8 nights of lighting the Menorah.

Merry Christmas!

I better not forget my Black brothers and Sisters that celebrate Kwanzaa! May your souls celebrate the first fruits of the holiday....

.... and my nerdy white brothers and sisters celebrating Festivus! May your grievances be aired!!!

December 24th, 2023

 It is fitting that on the Eve of the Christ child’s birth… the oldest rivalry in the NFL plays a game.

No… it’s not really that important, but the subject grabbed your attention.

You are thinking, it’s Christmas Eve and Jumbo is Chalking about football?

The Southside Cardinals versus the Northside Bears. A White Sox and Cubs game, but on the gridiron.

What if?

What if the Cardinals still called Chicago home? It is unfortunate that the football Cardinals were exiled to a baseball town and now they play football somewhere near Mexico.

The reason why we have so many native Chicagoans who are Packer fans is because the Cardinals left Chicago. It also helped that they left in 1959 and the Packers were at the beginning of a dynasty that year. It’s also because Cardinal fans hated the Bears and Halas, just like Sox fans hate the Cubs.

The subject that I spent the last thirty minutes tossing and turning in bed wasn’t this football game. It wasn’t about Baby Jesus and his birth next to a trough full of feed.

I was tossing and turning thinking about widows. Which could be associated with the NFL. Football has created many Sunday afternoon widows.

I thought about the Virgin Mary. At one point Joseph dies and she becomes a single mom raising the Son of God. (Sorry to my Jewish friends, G-d.)

I’ve dated several widows since my Exile west of Mannheim ended. The difference between dating a widow and dating a divorced woman is extreme.

Divorced women pretty much chose to end their relationship. The love was gone. Widows don’t have the choice to end their marriage. Widows are still madly in love.

The Shepkids and I had a newly widowed lady over to the house last night. That is the reason I tossed and turned before I finally got the big cheeks off the box springs.

Christmas time does a total mind fuck on showing us what has left our lives.

Something as simple as a restaurant to something as painful as a spouse or in most cases our parents.

Let’s walk into this at an easy pace….

I miss going to Gennaro’s down on Taylor Street the week before Christmas. It’s closed….

For years my dad took us to a place on the near Southside called Sauers right before Christmas. They tore it down when they expanded McCormick Place.

I miss my Gramma on Christmas. The smell of her house, the traditions and the family stories

I miss drinking on Christmas Eve with my buddies and then going to Midnight Mass completely shit faced. That’s when you realize you should have taken a piss before you left the tavern.

I miss my parents on Christmas. I miss my mom letting me open presents as soon as she wrapped them. I think she would wrap one on December 19th on purpose. Just so she could see my joy a few days early.

I miss asking my dad if I could open a present early. He would usually say, “you gotta be shitting me son? We don’t unwrap gifts until Mary wraps up the Baby Jesus!!!”

Last night my Mother in Law missed the love of her life. I’m so proud of the Shepkids and how they made their grieving grandmother feel a tad better on the Eve of the Eve.

I mentioned how Christmas points out many of the things that we have lost in life. Christmas also does a helluva job bringing us all together.

I’ll never again sneak one of my Gramma’s cookies when she isn’t looking. My mom will never wrap another present for me. My dad will never drive us into the city for a pre Christmas dinner and I don’t plan on going to mass all twated up on Old Style and RumpleMinze ever again.

I do hope I have more Christmas gifts to exchange with my children and I pray that Christmas time brings less grief and more joy to all the Chalkheads that I love.

Enjoy spying for flying reindeer tonight.

December 23rd, 2023

These next few days will immediately roll into Christmas past. All of our Christmases become one big memory. Maybe it’s a memory or more like a spirit. Christmas allows us to be sentimental about days long ago.

Christmas evokes grief, it evokes hope, it evokes peace and sometimes pain.

We all have our traditions that come out every year. Maybe it’s great grandpa's tradition or mom’s. The traditions are the glue that keeps Christmas past together.

Maybe listening to your favorite Christmas songs or watching your favorite Christmas movies every December? Maybe having a holiday meal at your favorite restaurant with family? Maybe meeting dear friends for a few pints at the pub? Maybe you just stay home and crawl under gramma’s afghan and sip Bailey’s?

Do you put an angel or a star on your tree?

Do you have a menorah next to your tree?

My dad always wanted to get a Hanukkah bush and celebrate the arrival of Hanukkah Harry and Santa. His combination of the Christian and Jewish traditions.

It’s like this Festivus craze from Seinfeld. I know a couple jokers who have a Festivus pole. One of my friends has his Festivus pole next to his fragile leg lamp in the front window.

These are traditions that will last generations. It may seem silly and fun for us, but a great, great grandchild will someday take pride in the family leg lamp from the turn of the millennium. Something we found as a funny prop will be a grandiose centerpiece in 2079.

Tonight I’ll watch “The Bishop’s Wife” for the second time this year. Tomorrow night I will watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Last night we watched “The Family Stone.” Someday the Shepkids will watch these movies with my grandchildren and say how much Grampa Jumbo loved this movie or that Christmas Carol.

At my age I don’t remember Christmas of 1974, but I remember Christmas time from the seventies. Same thing with the eighties. I’m not sure if that was 1983 or 1987, but the memories are stronger as one.

The faces may change with age, the trendy presents will change from cabbage patches to Nintendos, the timely fashions definitely will change from stirrup pants to skinny jeans, but never ditch the ugly sweater.

Dad’s nutcracker collection will be on the mantle. Uncle’s plastic snowman and Santa will be on the front lawn. Little brother’s ornament from third grade will hang on the tree and great grampa’s smoker will still leave hints of jasmine and cinnamon throughout the house.

Make these next couple days instant memories that will melt into tradition. Christmas of 2023 will eventually be a Christmas from the twenties. We will all be a part of that memory and missed by younger loved ones. Just like we miss those who filled Christmas past and left behind their cookie recipe and nativity scene.

My great grandchildren will cringe when they hear one of Great Grampa Jumbo’s favorite Christmas songs, “Fairytale of New York” and Kirsty MacColl sings, “You scumbag, you maggot, You cheap lousy faggot!”

How did they get away with stuff like that in the twentieth century?

I won’t be able to put the smile on your sun today, but I hope your star shines bright and your nog is spiked just right.

Happy Eve of the Eve!

Festivus for the rest of us!

Let the wild rump start!

December 22nd, 2023

   I graduated from the University of the North Pole in 1992. I was in the top five of my graduation class. I’ve been one of Mr Kringle’s main guys for the last twenty years.

Hazel told me that she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus this week.

Ten years old and she has lost her belief in the man that holds the Spirit of Christmas together. I blame Taylor Swift and Roblox.

Their whole life, the kids have seen me sneak out of the house as Santa Claus.

I didn’t lie to them.

Santa Claus can’t be all over the world before Christmas talking to children. He can’t be at a hospital and a shopping mall at the same time. So he has a college for men to learn how to be Santa. I was picked personally by the Big Man to enroll when I was a young man.

I’ve been to Santa’s workshop. I’ve flown across Bethlehem on the auxiliary sled during Christmas. I’ve fed Donner and Blitzen and I’ve packed Santa’s bag on December 23rd.

This all came crashing down on Wednesday when Hazel told me she knows Santa doesn’t exist.

Wednesday, the 20th of December in the year of 2023. Hazel became a nonbeliever. The bells will never ring for her again.

She can find something else to do tonight. I’m not renting that Taylor Swift concert movie this weekend.

She accused me of calling and texting my personal phone from my work phone. She thinks I have “Santa Claus” listed on my contacts on my Futures-International work phone. The phone that I use to sell thousands of soybeans or buy bushels upon bushels of corn. Compliance would reprimand me if they found out I was using that phone for the Naughty and Nice List.

Pretty good deception if I say so myself. When the kids would start jagging around, I would leave my cell phone laying nearby. Then I’d walk away and text it from another room.

Then I’d listen…..

Everytime, Everytime the jagging around would end with the words,

“Dad….Dad….Dad! Santa is texting you!”

Whenever we would be in the grocery store or Target and the kids start to jag around…. I’d point at a fire alarm on the wall or hanging from the ceiling….Santa Claus camera!

I’ve created a George Orwell police state, but Big Brother isn’t watching. Santa Claus is watching.

It’s not, “you better not pout, you better not cry” in Chicagoland. It’s more like, “Quit jagging around! Look right there! That’s a Santa camera…. You just put yourself on the Naughty!”

“…. But Dad, can’t you talk to Santa and get us back on the Nice?”

And with an honest reply I always said, “you gotta be shitting me? That is lying and I could be expelled from Santa’s team!”

I knew that I’d eventually have to send the Shepkids to therapy once they realized that dad wasn’t buddies with the Big Man.

But this week I realized that it is me that will be going to therapy.

When Hazel dropped the bomb on me Wednesday…. I came back and asked her one question.

Do you think this Taylor Swift broad will gives two shits if you’re having a bad day at school?

SHE WON'T…… but Santa sure as hell will. Santa always has your back.

I guess I should be prepared today when I meet TL for a quick beer at the Joyce…..

….. and I tell Hazel that I have a quick checklist meeting with Santa and she says, “Tell Mr TL hello.”

My baby girl no longer believes that I’m a UNP alum.

Devastating, just devastating!

Guess what Hazelnut! Santa does exist and TL works for him as well and the James Joyce is a portal to the North Pole!

December 21st, 2023

I think today is a day for celebration. For the next six months the sunrise and sunset times will widen. Though let us not get too excited just yet. The first sunset after 5:00pm (in Chicagoland) doesn’t happen until the end of January, but we are on our way.

My mom had a tradition on Winter Solstice to write two letters to herself. The first letter was about something from the last year that she wanted to get rid of. In the second letter she would write down a goal or achievement that she would like to fulfill in the year to come. It was her way of doing a New Year’s resolution, but a week and a half before everyone else.

The symbolism of a resolution on the shortest day of the year actually has more meaning. Get rid of the negative energy in the darkness and let each day get brighter with positive energy.

This plan makes more sense rather than giving something up on the first of the year after a night of gluttony.

The word “solstice” comes from the Latin word "solstitium," which means, “Sun stands still.”

Go outside this afternoon and stand on your driveway. Hopefully the sun is out so you can measure the length of your shadow. In six months stand in the same place and try and find your shadow.

What does this experiment show us?

It shows us how small we really are in the big scheme of things. Which means our problems, all of them are small as well.

I gotta shake my tail feather here and get Thursday started. Enjoy this short day and both the joy and crap that it will bring.

Joy and Crap…. I’ve never seen those two words together. Starting today let’s see less of the crap and more of the joy.

Joy and Crap…. Great title for a book.

December 20th, 2023

 I’ve noticed a few “defriends” recently on Facebook. Maybe it’s because I despise ketchup on a hotdog? Maybe it’s because I support Israel? Maybe it’s because I don’t make it past a third date?

I’ll never put ketchup on my hotdog. I will always support Israel and thanks for the red flag before things got carried away.

My ex wife defriended me about a year before I moved to Riverside. A couple guys that I worked with defriended me before and after the trading floor closed. Recently a handful departed when I told the story about my dad’s Jewish buddy.

I’m not too upset and I’ll quote Sir Elton John, I’m still standing.

Let’s cut some more losses before the end of the year. I think Trump, Biden and The Pope are horrible. I love people, but I hate races. Anyone who thinks Bartman cost the Cubs that game, you’re an assclown. If you use the term “Chi-town” for Chicago, please defriend me.

You know what takes the place of these clowns that left my Facebook friends list?

I’m still friends with a guy I bullied in grade school. I’m still friends with my mother in law and I’m still friends with most of the girls I’ve dated since moving to Riverside.

The kid I bullied…. I told him that I was sorry. My kids now call him Uncle.

My MIL…. That one is a head scratcher, but she loves my children and puts up with me.

The girls that I’ve dated and we have stayed friends. I didn’t bullshit them and we realized at our age that life is too short for grudges. Many of them have found the right guy and some of those guys have become Chalkheads.

I’m fifty seven fucking years old. I don’t care if you’re a democrat. Just don’t badmouth Reagan, Nixon or Goldwater in front of me. I don’t care if you put ketchup on your hotdog. Just sit at another table.

I’m fifty seven fucking years old. I don’t have time for pettiness. I’m here, I don’t care if you’re queer and Old Style is my favorite beer.

Please call me out before you defriend me. There are so many people reading this right now that have been pissed off at me, but they are still in my corner….

…. And for you guys, thank you and I love you. I will continue to try putting the smile on your sun. Just don’t ever go with me for a hotdog in a Cubs hat and a Packers shirt.

Because I WILL squirt mustard on you.

December 19th, 2023

 I miss taking the train to work because that was where I got my best daydreaming done.

I still remember that ride on the Lake Street for my first day on the trading floor. My dad gave me two CTA tokens that morning. The rest of the journey was up to me and boy was it one hell of a dream.

From the early years in my career when I took the “L” into the later years on the Metra. I put in some quality time daydreaming in a different world. Most of the time it was the same world but I had a little more money in my pocket, my ass was smaller and my apartment had central air.

I ended up with enough money in my pocket, my ass still bounces, but I do have central air.

I don’t daydream as much anymore when Betty the Green Blazer and I drive to work. I worry more these days about life. Worrying doesn’t allow me to be lost in thought. It was also easier to hallucinate about LaLa land when a motorman or an engineer was doing the driving.

It’s been 13,550 days since my Oldman gave me those antiquated coins at Ridgeland Avenue. From Garfield Park through the Loop and out to Lagrange… I’ve gone from being the next Mike Royko, to being a rich and famous trader, to opening my front door to a Mardi Gras parade, to being a middle aged tighthead prop.

Always returning back to being me when hearing the conductor call my stop. I’m pretty lucky where the train let me off.

It is Tuesday morning and I’m already….. in a daydream.

December 18th, 2023

 I laid around all day yesterday and watched my favorite Christmas movies. I didn’t even watch the Bears game.

I started with “White Christmas” and “The Bishop’s Wife.” Then I watched “Love Actually” and “The Family Stone.” I took a break to go to Walgreens and that reminded me of Mr. Gower, so I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I finished the night with a couple low budget gems. “Feast of Seven Fishes” which I discovered last year, is a fun movie about an Italian family in 1983. The other gem I like is a movie nobody really knows called “Noelle” from 2007. Filmed entirely on Cape Cod and also known as “Mrs. Worthington’s Party.

From ten in the morning until eight at night…. Christmas movies.

Those are my top seven Christmas movies. Round it out with “A Christmas Story,” “A Christmas Carol (1951)” and “Miracle on 34th.”

If I go to eleven I’ll include “The Muppet Christmas Carol” movie from the early nineties.

That is the annual Jumbo’s Christmas movie list.

December 17th,2023

 In a week we will be gathering for Christmas Eve. Many gathering together for the first time. Some of us may gather for the last time. Many not gathering at all.

The post cards and the movies usually have a big gathering of family and friends. Smiling and laughing in front of beautifully decorated trees or at an elegantly placed dinner table.

This might be the first Christmas for couples, be it newlyweds or those who just started dating.

The first Christmas as parents usually has that special ornament for the tree, “Babies first Christmas 2023.”

There are those Eleanor Rigby’s out there that spend Christmas alone. Whatever life circumstances have left them behind by themselves on Christmas.

It’s the Christmas that we might share with someone for the last time that makes us reminisce when they are gone.

I yelled at my mom the last Christmas we spent together. We were driving to my in-laws for Christmas. I had a Chevy Suburban that fit George and Fritz in the back row, baby Hazel and my mom in the middle and my wife and I up front. Molly the puppy was crammed in the back with presents and a jello mold.

Fritz and George were all worked up, loud and obnoxious as they anticipated Christmas Day. It was definitely not a postcard trip that went over the mountain and through the woods.

That’s when my mom’s nerves came to a boil and she said to me, “Can you please control your kids! There is something wrong with George, he isn’t normal!”

My fingers clenched the steering wheel and Christmas spirit left my heart….

…..“Coming from you? A lesson in parenthood coming from you?

You would be the last person I’d talk to about parenthood!”

At that time in life, I wasn’t the town crier when it came to telling everyone that George was recently diagnosed with autism. So I probably should have given my mom the benefit of not knowing the situation.

But I didn’t and that was my last Christmas with my mom.

The next day was a work day. My mom and I both took the morning train into the city. I left her in the Great Room at Union Station to wait for her train home to Indianapolis. I walked over to the Board of Trade still pissed off.

I will always picture her sitting on that big wooden bench with a sad look on her face. She had one more Christmas left after that year. She stayed home.

Becareful this Christmas….

…it might be your last Christmas with someone that you love. Try not to make a memory like I did for my mom’s last Christmas. Try and make one like this one, PopPop’s last Christmas.

We didn’t know last year was our last Christmas with PopPop. I can see him sitting in my chair watching the Shepkids open presents. All he kept saying was…. “This is great, this is great!” He was so happy spending time with George, Fritz and Hazel.

I can’t go back and sugarcoat that last Christmas with my mom. However I did make the last Christmas with Pop a lasting memory for his grandchildren.

Have a lush week and don’t stress out getting prepared for next weekend.

Baby Jesus still shows up. Santa will complete his journey and Uncle Max will fart at the dinner table.

It’s Christmas time Baby!