July 23rd, 2025

 The Glory of Late July...

In Chicagoland, the last days of July don’t whisper, they yell. Usually in a deep Chicagonese accent.

A symphony of attic fans, alewives laying on the shore, RC in a two liter, francheezies, ice cream trucks and kick-the-can echoing down cracked alleyways. The lightning bugs blink like Morse code sent from childhood itself, while the ghosts of a Schwinn Stingray leaned against a chain-link fence separating the park from the Lake Michigan beach. God, I wish I took better care of that bike, sorry dad....

We didn’t have calendars. We had Mrs. Jablonski’s pitcher of orange Kool-Aid. We had the ballpark dust on our shins, a brand new Louisville Slugger from the hardware store and the slow, sweet crackle of WLS under the pillow as we fell asleep on our baseball gloves.

Our older cousins played Cheap Trick too loud on the back stoop and someone always got socked in the arm for saying something stupid.

We kissed girls from the neighboring parish and swore secrecy on the walk home past their rectory.

Friday nights, when the kitchen was too damn hot, Mom dialed the local pizza joint and told them to make it quick. Soon delivered in a grease-stained bag with the map of Italy and a two-liter of RC ready to be divvied up between thirteen kids.

The attic fan, God bless... it had the pull of a DC-3. It took the heat, our snores, and our dreams right through the roof, replacing them with a breeze strong enough to lift the cowboy-and-Indian curtains like ghosts dancing one last reel across the plastered ceiling.

Now the end of July means waking up before the sun, answering emails, matching bids with offers and staring down at the dinner hour waiting to start over for the next monotonous day.

If I close my eyes just long enough, I can still hear the crack of the bat, still taste those creamy scrambled eggs that my ma occasionally made and still feel the worn leather of that glove swinging on my handlebars.

Growing up is mandatory.

Forgetting the glory of late July?

That is not acceptable.

Adulthood, parenthood, career and responsibility should never keep us from making new memories. Though relying on childhood memories is a sweet blessing.

What I would do for a swig off my Oldman's Lowenbrau right about now.

Anyway.... Let’s finish July with gusto and a couple wins at the old ballpark.

July 22nd, 2025

 Let me tell you something about barking dogs. Because I have met a few in my time. They sit behind the Goldman desk with their cufflinks and overpriced cologne, acting like their trade ideas are commandments from Sinai. When all they are is an overpriced phone clerk.

They show up in divorce court under a different last name, barking legal spew and stirring drama like it’s a crockpot. They whisper about my Chalkboard like it's too loud, too raw, too vulgar. They turned away when they saw the "I Love Hot Moms" sticker on Betty the Green Blazer...

...and they even laughed at me in ’84, until my big booty spun on that piece of linoleum and shut them all up.

But I never threw a stone. I just kept walking. Because barkers bark... that is what they do.

Me?

I build.

I pray...

I write.

I raise Shepkids.

I find bids and offers.

I dance if the music’s good.

Yap yap dogs come and go.

Like Norm said: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.”

And like I say: leave the yapper a bowl of water and he’ll piss himself out.

These mealy mouths, whether they are on the trading floor, in the front church pew, tailgating the yellow on Harlem, or hiding behind a keyboard...

they all bark loud, burn fast, and crawl back to their doghouse when the stamina runs out.

Don’t bark. Don’t throw stones. Just keep swimming.

July 21st, 2025

    Here we go with another Monday. The kind of Monday that separates the doers from the dabblers. While some people are still shaking off the weekend or nursing regrets, I’m already lacing up and leaning in. Because life doesn’t wait for you to feel ready. It just shows up and it is up to you whether you answer the bell or roll over and hit snooze.

I have spent enough time worrying about what people think. Enough hours twisting myself in knots trying to win over the miserable and the misinformed. That’s a game you never win. Those assclowns up in the cheap seats will always have something stupid to say. That is why they sit where they do. Because it is safer to heckle than hustle. Safer to mock than make.

They show up empty and leave bitter every time. You can spot them a mile away...

...arms crossed, eyes squinted, waiting to pounce on someone else who stumbles, so they can feel a little taller. Let them whistle in the corner, make their nervous humming sounds and apologize over and over again. Let them bark and point and gossip.

Because here is the truth...

... people doing something worthwhile rarely have time to sit around criticizing. They are too busy carrying the weight, chasing meaning and living in harmony.

Today is not about proving anything to anyone. It’s about putting your head down and stacking something real. It could be a decision, a phone call, a workout, a conversation you’ve been ducking. Whatever it is, get to it. Let the day meet a version of you that isn't hiding.

If the critics still chirp? Let them chirp. Let them whistle until their lips crack. I’ve got a job to do, a life to live, and a week to get after. There is joy in the doing, even if nobody is clapping.

Just put a smile on your sun, find something astounding and bring gusto to your world.

July 20th, 2025

 Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion?

Yeah?

I have two words for society that we throw around like rice at a wedding... hope and passion. Cheapened by repetition and worn down to smooth stones that don’t skip when you chuck them across a pond.

Hope?

That got hijacked by politicians with nothing in the tank but a catchphrase. Hope mattered when you were eight, wishing on Santa for a new Schwinn. After that, it belongs in a drawer with unicorn stickers, whoopie cushions, and that old leather wallet you carried through high school. The one with a ring in the leather from a condom you never used.

And passion? Christ!

That word gets tossed around like it belongs in everybody’s story. It's good for a centerfielder in October or a Broadway diva belting to the mezzanine...

...but for the rest of us, the Grawbowskis, it doesn’t belong on the menu.

I'm a Grawbowski and we don’t do passion. We do early shifts, burnt coffee, busted knuckles, and second helpings. My people came from bakeries, from quarries and from railyards. We don’t sip mimosas, we drink out of chipped mugs at diners with eggs that still jiggle. My couch has a slipcover and the last car I drove was born in the 1900s.

I do some damn fine things. I cook a mean steak, I bake a mean peach cobbler and I write words that land. I read a shit ton because my brain is a battlefield and books are how I keep the foxholes from caving in. That ain’t passion, that is survival and only the strong can survive.

Fatherhood?

It ain’t fairy dust and slaying dragons. It’s dilemmas, dedication, discipline, and showing up on the days that wear you down to a nub. Not because you're passionate, but because you're responsible. You plant seeds and pray they grow into humans that you will be proud of.

My job?

I don’t love it like some romantic fool, I respect it. I bring work ethic, show up clean and leave a trail of grit. I thank God every morning for a five-decade career that still pays the bills and lets me sleep at night. Passion? No. Integrity? Every damn ounce.

I don’t have hope, I have awareness.

I don’t have passion, I have follow-through.

I don’t sit around waiting for a genie in a bottle. I mop the floor, make the grocery list, stand at a trading desk, pack my lunchbox, pray to heaven and I get it all done without passion.

Joy?

That is seeing a sunrise and knowing three people in the world love me. I swear and pray in the same breath. I talk to heaven and cuss out hell before brushing my teeth. I listen for the roar of a lion and the coo of the Mourning dove.

That is joy for me.

Then I go do what needs doing. Not because I’m chasing a passionate dream full of hope. Because I’m a Grawbowski and Grawbowskis don’t have butlers or gardeners. We get morning light, stiff knees, and the blessing of one more go-round.

God willing.

You wanna throw some zeal or gusto into your Sunday Funday? Be my guest. I’ll be on the couch with a coffee watching golf in the Northern Irish wind. The British Open, now that’s a holy day. Passion? You keep it.

I’ve got chores to finish and JumboLove to spread.

July 19th, 2025

    Last night, the sunset didn’t do its job. Neither did the lightning bugs. Neither did my jazz music.

I sat on the balcony with a Manhattan and I let the day settle deep into my chest. Hard bop from seventy years ago poured from the speaker, but even Miles Davis and John Coltrane couldn’t shake the ache. The kind of ache that won’t show up on a calendar, but settles firmly into your bones.

I have a daughter who won’t come over to Riverside. I have an ex who would rather stir than settle and a home that I built on the belief that the Shepkids would always feel safe.

Just when I was sitting there talking to the night like it owed me a paycheck, Fritz came out on the balcony. Quietly, no big speech. Just checking on his Oldman. He was in the middle and he knew his Oldman wasn't his gregarious self. That is when I told him and now, I am telling you Chalkheads...

A bad day can’t become a bad week. A bad week can’t become a bad month and a bad month can’t turn into a bad year. Because that can only scar a glorious life.

We can't let that happen.

I know it isn't kosher to write about our problems in public. This board is where I go to talk to something steadier than Bob Newhart. It is my therapist and maybe yours as well. Sometimes when you are going through a shit storm, you gotta say it out loud so it doesn’t eat you alive in silence.

I don’t have any answers today.

But I’ve got this...

... pain makes us stronger if we let it teach us. Melody doesn’t always cure the ache, but it reminds us we are still alive enough to feel it.

So today, I’ll chalk the board. I’ll stack another brick. I’ll stand in the same spot I have stood in for many years. Because even when the melody is minor, the tune still plays.

...and when Hazel reads this someday, I hope she knows that her daddy’s home is the safest place in her world and the foundation she needs is always here.

Saturday is Daiquiri Day, I quoted Hemingway and my weatherman says we might have some rain. I just need you Chalkheads to walk on the sunnier side of your journey and bring an umbrella. If you are a banker and it is pouring rain, wear your mac and go check on Eleanor.

July 18th, 2025

    The first habit I picked back up after my Exile West of Mannheim Road was making my bed.

That was my bed again, no one else’s. I got in it alone and climbed out of it alone. So, every morning I made it my way. That simple act gave me a win before the day even got rolling. At night, no matter if the day was glorious or a full-blown shitshow, I climbed into a freshly made bed.

That’s closure. That’s pride.

Now, one habit I miss, deep in my bones, is reading the morning paper.

I come from a long line of ink-stained fingers. My Oldman could fold a crease in the Tribune like a Marine folds dress blues. I devoured the box scores, the standings and the Maywood and Sportsmans race results. I followed the circus at City Hall, read about aldermen throwing punches, and I got my movie picks from Roger Ebert. Royko was gospel. Holtzman told it straight. Gil Thorpe was the best coach. Kup was fading but still swinging by the time I picked up the paper.

And Sundays?

Jesus, a thick Sunday Tribune with the TV Guide, coffee cake and a fresh cup of coffee was a ritual.

I’ve got so many daily habits. Some I chose and some were handed down. Someday, the Shepkids are gonna sit around a Thanksgiving table, laughing about my quirks. If they start bitching over pumpkin pie about the way I did things, I swear I’ll flick the dining room lights from heaven just to remind them that old habits don’t die, they just dim a bit.

My Gramma had me up early when I was on her clock, working my ass off. Because of her, I’m the guy who shows up before on-time because on-time is already late. That stuck with me along with turning off WIBC to say Grace before breakfast and lunch.

The Chalkboard?

It’s a habit now too. Maybe the chalk breaks some days, maybe the sun doesn’t shine, but I’m still gonna chalk as long as I can. Some mornings I get fifty looks, other days I get five hundred. People tell me the Chalkboard has become part of their routine and if I have become their Royko or Wally Phillips, then I’m doing something right. That comes with a shit ton of responsibility. I won’t take it lightly you Chalkheads.

There’s less than two weeks left in July. We will lose 43 minutes of daylight by month’s end. The GoldBond will get swapped out for the Vicks VapoRub soon enough. Another habit formed through the years.

In 74 days, our Jewish brothers and sisters will atone on Yom Kippur. In 132 days, we will be rubbing BenGay on our cankles and shoulders before the annual Turkey Bowl.

Ditch the habits that drag you down. Keep the ones that lift you up. Put a smile on the sun and make the world astounding for yourself and the people lucky enough to cross your path.

Shabbat Shalom.

Keep chalking.

July 17th, 2025

 A quote from Scotty Fitz to inspire the Morning Chalkboard today...

One Fall Ain’t the Finish.

I’ve stumbled, yeah,

but I’ve never stayed down.

Not once.

Got that from my Oldman

who taught me life doesn't pause

for your bruises.

... and from Fitzgerald,

I learned not to bet my soul

on some green light

flickering across the bay.

Hope is a helluva thing,

but it won’t carry your weight.

Failure?

It knocks, but it doesn’t get to move in

unless you open the door and pour it a drink.

I’ve bounced.

Every damn time.

Not because I’m lucky...

... because I know the fall ain’t the finish.

July 16th, 2025

 Some wounds never heal right. Some goodbyes never come. Some people never apologize. Life doesn’t always tie up with a bow, but I have been around long enough to know that you can’t wait around for closure.

You’ve got to move forward...

...sometimes limping, sometimes laughing, but always forward.

I've buried parents, been divorced and had my heart busted up a few times. I got laid off when the floor started it's decline. I've watched the Shepkids go through things I wish I could have shielded them from. I could have let that stuff cement me in place. Instead, I chalked it up, took the hit, and kept walking. That is how my dad taught me. Lower your shoulders and barrel through.

Now that I’ve acknowledged the heavy, let’s pivot to my admiration for hotdogs.

Because it is National Hot Dog Day and that is holy ground in Chicagoland.

Everyone knows my stand: no mustard?

You’re out of order. Ketchup? That’s a felony.

Nothing hits like unwrapping a steaming Chicago style dog. A Vienna beef packed into a poppy seed bun with yellow mustard, neon relish, chopped onions, tomato wedges, sport peppers, pickle spear, and a sprinkle of celery salt.

It’s art. It’s attitude. It’s home.

Some days called for a curveball. Back at the Board of Trade, I’d get a slaw dog from the cafeteria lady. Big beef dog buried under a mountain of that crisp slaw they did just right. That’s another form of closure ... switching it up and still feeling whole. We also have the other option of a depression dog every once and awhile.

The hotdog has been with me from the start. Mom cutting up hot dogs on a plate while Bozo the Clown played on the TV. Saturday drives with the Oldman discovering new stands around Chicago. Taking the Shepkids to those same spots a generation later. The hotdog tells the story of my life better than most photo albums.

If there is any closure that I believe in...

... it is the first messy bite of a proper hotdog. When I walk through the gates of heaven, I’m convinced the first thing I will see is a stand, maybe I’m behind Socrates or Sophia Loren in line.

That’s fine.

I’ll wait.

Heaven’s got time and the dogs are always fresh.

Do yourself a favor and take a drive this afternoon. Go find your favorite hotdog stand. Take that astonishing bite and find the kind of closure we all deserve.

July 15th, 2025

 I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it. The key to getting through this life is learning the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. My Oldman drilled that into me, and I’m currently drilling it into the Shepkids.

You don’t need a crowd. You need a couple of dear, close friends. Then you have your close group or crew. After that, it drops fast...

...friends, people you know, acquaintances, and those you can’t stand.

Another truth my Oldman gave me. Not everyone is going to like you. Some folks just won’t, maybe because you rub them wrong. Maybe because they think you’re an assclown and that’s fine. Because chances are, they rub you wrong too.

What matters is standards.

Do they have integrity?

Do they have grit?

Are they fake, or do they show up when it counts?

Plenty of folks think I’m a mealy-mouthed faker and I don’t care. I don’t get up in the morning hoping to have their approval. Odds are they are already a miserable person.

The best day of their life sits somewhere between the day I got let go at work and the day I put down my 14-year-old doggie.

These people don’t see the smile I draw on the sun.

They don’t see the beauty in the world.

They don’t see beauty in themselves, so how could they ever see it in you?

Most people who don’t like you are just scared shitless of you.

So go be you and be someone’s dear friend. Keep walking past the mealy mouths and the fakers. Bring a little joy into a world that is short on it. Make someone forget about the local assclown population by putting a smile on their sun and pointing out where the moon is.

You are a Chalkhead. You put the groove in the heart and the smile on the sun.

It’s the Ides of July and a gorgeous day is ahead.

It is Two for Tuesday...

...I’m calling the DJ and requesting some ELO.

I woke up singing “Mr. Blue Sky,” and I’m not letting anyone bring me down.

July 14th, 2025

 Some mornings, the chalk just wants to speak plain truth and today's quote nails it.

When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen. I believed it to be true.

That line isn’t just motivational poster fluff. It is a challenge. It is a dare. A reminder that the story only matters if it is yours. You can’t live your life as someone else’s draft.

Not your parents', not your ex’s, not your boss’s, not even society’s. They may hand you the first few pages, but after that it is all on you. You better grip the pen like your life depends on it, because it does.

I needed to give credit to two National Day's in the grabber section this morning. It is National Nude Day and National Mac & Cheese Day. Two of the most vulnerable states a person can be in...

...bare and comfortable.

I almost had to leave them off the chalkboard today. I never double up, but both earned their space. One asks you to strip away the armor. The other reminds you of what makes you feel safe.

Both play a part in the story we write.

We all want to write something beautiful, but real beauty comes from the honest lines. The ones written when you are brave enough to be naked in your truth and still reach for the warmth that fills your belly.

So today, be bold, be soft, be the author that holds your own damn pen. You have plenty of daylight to write something worth reading.

July 13th, 2025

 I don’t know what I’m more surprised by...

...that we’re already halfway through July and summer is at its midpoint, or that Live Aid happened forty years ago today.

Back then, I was nineteen. Queen took the stage and played that ridiculously long song from the '70s that I thought sucked, mostly because when I was thirteen, I sang, “Momma, just killed a bear,” at a pool party.

Every kid who heard me barked back, “It’s man, not bear, dummy!” I was mortified. Swore off “Bohemian Rhapsody” for a decade after that. Now here I am, in my late fifties, cranking that same ridiculous song every time it comes on.

Funny what time does.

Freddie Mercury only had six more years left after that incredible performance. None of us knew then that he had been diagnosed with “that thing” the gays and drug users were getting... or so we ignorantly believed. Then that kid in Kokomo got it. He wasn’t gay or a drug user.

.....and slowly, we got smarter. Slowly.

Forty years sure does change a lot. When Live Aid aired, the 59-year-olds were World War II vets. Most of them are gone now. The kids who were nineteen that day? We have replaced the old geezers.

In 1945, nineteen-year-olds were finishing up kicking the shit out of nazis and japs.

In 1985, nineteen-year-olds were watching MTV and meeting Marty McFly for the first time.

As for today’s nineteen-year-olds? I couldn’t even tell you what the hell they’re doing. That’s how I know I’ve turned into that old geezer. Maybe not quickly, but steadily, over forty years.

Live Aid was a game changer. It showed what music and mass media could do. It united 1.5 billion people, made hunger and poverty a part of the conversation in the West and it opened the door to celebrity activism. From Woodstock to Live Aid to Lollapalooza… and now a never ending parade of rigged up pop stars and dim witted cue-card readers taking up causes too complex to grasp in just a soundbite.

Enough of the flashback. It’s Sunday Funday.

The remnants of the full moon is melting across the early morning sky, and it is the kind of July day you remember forever...

...watermelon, potato chips, a Tupperware pitcher of red sugar water, kids splashing under the sprinkler, a Cub or Sox game crackling from a transistor, beach towels splayed across the grass, and some old geezer flipping burgers on the Weber.

Perfect day to be a little high, a little low because any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me.

To me...

July 12th, 2025

 We were flipping through over 2,500 photos of the Morning Chalkboard, almost eight years of the same board.

But is it really the same?

That is why I can never take a vacation. I have to be in my spot every morning, chalk in hand. What started as a therapeutic hobby has turned into a life’s work.

My guest looked at me and said, “I’m not sure I get it though. I mean, how did you even come up with the idea, they all seem to be the same?”

I told them, “They might all be the same, but each one is different from the rest. You’ve got your bright mornings and your dark afternoons. You have summer light and autumn gray. Weekdays and weekends. Baseball scores, full moons, holiday countdowns, and quotes from mostly dead people.

I always try to draw a smile on the sun and find astonishment in the little things. You know how it goes, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, time creeps at a petty pace.

Speaking of which, we have fifty-one days until the official end of summer vacation. Then we put on the Wayfarers and jump in a Cadillac with a Deadhead sticker, waving bye-bye to another summer.

The rain the past couple nights robbed us of a good view of the Buck Moon, the July full moon. In about 30 days, we will be on the lookout for the Sturgeon Moon. Daylight has slipped under fifteen hours now as we creep into mid-July.

Summertime and the living is easy.

Get your chores done, and have a glass of gusto with a guest today.

July 11th, 2025

     Minds are like parachutes: They only function when open. If that is the case, I will probably plummet to the ground most days.

I get so locked into my routines and habits that keeping an open mind isn’t always the first thing on my list. Though every now and then, I do surprise myself. Like when boxer briefs came along and I ditched the plaid boxer shorts that my dad and uncles swore by. Credit Markie Mark for that one. Turns out, snug balls beat swinging balls between two hip-hop thighs every day. So, in that case, change ain’t always bad.

Still, some things I have never strayed from. I’ve kept that Catholic schoolboy look since the ‘70s. Part prep school altar boy, part suburban middle-aged dad. I will say that I never gave in to those white New Balance lawn-mowing shoes. There are limits and I still have some taste.

I’ll admit that I have fallen behind. The world from 1980 to 2020 moved faster than a Commodore 64 loading screen. Technology, fashion, politics, philosophy... it all exploded. When globalization pushed borders, I preferred to stand still.

I think music took a nosedive after the Spice Girls and Green Day showed up. Mtv stopped showing videos and started to make shows about the real world. Maybe it was the mobile phone and caller ID…

…that ruined prank calls and killed the landlines hanging on the kitchen wall.

That was the real turning point when I got flustered with change. That was around the time computer monitors started popping up at desks on the trading floor. Things were changing too fast for me.

I have evolved in my own way. I do like my steaks rarer now. I do try to keep my prejudices clipped and my heart open. I still say “And also with you” at Mass, even if the Church wants me to say, “And with your spirit.” That is a hard sell for this old Altar Boy.

The parachute metaphor works, but I prefer the one from my grade school gym... a bunch of kids pulling tight on a giant parachute from WWII and one brave skinny kid bouncing in the middle, trusting we all hang on. That kind of collective openness, that trust is what I miss. I wonder if Saint Basil’s had parachute accidents covered in their insurance plan.

In the end, whether it’s a parachute or a door, the point is the same.

Stay open and let people in.

Let ideas in.

Let growth happen.

And as Markie Mark once said, “it's such a good vibration, it's such a sweet sensation.”

That is the goal. Black, white, red, brown, purple, or yellow. We all got to feel the vibration. Because it is, after all, a sweet, sweet sensation.

It's Friday and it is also National French Fry Day. On a day when I use the ketchup that I don't put on my hotdog.

Go be astonished and go find Gusto.

Both can always be found with a sixteen inch sausage and a two-liter bottle of Royal Crown on a Friday night......

July 10th, 2025

     The other day I was standing at my trading desk, thinking about the Oldman. I often talk to him when I need a down tick to hit my bid or an uptick to lift my offer. On that particular day, I was talking to him about the slow markets, my busted car, and my wonderful ex-wife.

I turned to look out the window and saw a massive cumulus cloud hanging over the western suburbs of Chicagoland. It was shaped like a big, fluffy penis, standing tall over Naperville and drifting toward Western Springs like it had somewhere important to be.

I wasn’t prepared to see a giant schwanz floating outside, but that is what I saw. That was the answer to my prayers that I received from Don Shepley, straight out of heaven. His way of telling me to suck it up… and not to be a dickhead.

I can picture my dad turning to Mother Nature and asking her for a cock-shaped cloud over DuPage County. My Ma sends me dimes and my Oldman sends genitalia.

I can’t wait for the day he sends a vagina over Chicagoland. Hopefully it will have a big orgasm and drench everyone. Joni Mitchell saw rows and floes of angel hair. John Shepley saw nobs and throbs and swollen balls.

Happy Thursday. Get out there and catch the full moon tonight, let those moonbeams rejuvenate your soul.

Because hey...

....people only see what they are prepared to see!

And apparently, my Oldman thinks I’m ready for sky dicks over Downers Grove....