October 10th, 2024

 I let Hazel pick out the quote for today’s Morning Chalkboard. She picked out a line from a song by Lil Peep.

I Googled this Lil Peep character.

The things we do for our children.

Today’s Chalkboard will be the only one ever to have a Lil Peep quote.

lil Peep and Hazel might be foreshadowing the next few months of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

You never know where you’ll be in the next minute….

Let’s get through this week and hope our Floridian Friends make it through safely.

Be astonished and be ready for a quick change.

October 9th, 2024

 All of the now’s pile up and create who we are. It is funny what now’s we remember the most and remember them on a regular basis.

Many now’s are good and the bad now’s have a big pile as well. It is the obscure now’s that make you scratch your head and wonder why you thought about that just now.

A now from 1974 or a now from 1989. I can remember a now from thirty years ago, but ask me about a now from earlier this year and I’m clueless.

Many people and places that I shared now’s with are gone, but there are people and places not yet known that will make future now’s.

Every now and then something good happens. Every now and then something bad happens.

What do you want to do now?

Discovering now’s makes life worth living.

Now I need to put my pants on and start Wednesday the ninth of October and prepare for some now’s.

Now is the time to be astonished

October 8th, 2024

 Today is National Pierogi Day.

The Polish have given us the Q-tip, Pope John Paul II, Chopin, clean homes and walkie talkies…

…but their biggest contribution is that fluffy little pillow of flavor.

Have a plate of pierogis and be astonished

October 7th, 2024

 Be strong, Be strong and we will be strengthened.

Every August I have a nervous friend who has a child going to Lollapalooza for the first time.

They a worried about the heat. They are worried about the drug usage. They are worried about fighting, booze and sexual misconduct. Letting your child go into the city with tens of thousands of people is a tough decision.

Now let’s think about Lollapalooza getting attacked by Islamic terrorists?

A year ago today a bunch of parents sent their children to a music festival in Israel. They never saw theme again.

I don’t have the courage today to be astonished. There isn’t a smile on the sun today. October 7th is a day of pain.

Have courage today

October 6th, 2024

 I’m not getting heavy into hatred on a Sunday morning. Hatred is the ugliest device owned by mankind.

Hatred has been around before we showed up and will be here well after our departure.

Try not to hate and don’t worry if someone hates you.

That’s enough about hate…

I was surprised at how warm yesterday turned out. Eighty degrees in October is like a ninety-five degree day in July. Not happy that I didn’t GoldBond up. My hip hop thighs are a little chafed with me today.

Today should be a tad more comfortable. Bears are on the gridiron today against an expansion team.

Bear Down and be astonished

October 5th, 2024

 The other day I celebrated the fourth anniversary of my Oldman going to Eternal Peace. I put 31,003 on the Morning Chalkboard that day. 31,003 was how many days my dad lived.

I thought about 31,004 days. What if I outlive my Oldman by one day?

That would get me to May 20th of 2051. That would be about six weeks shy of my eighty-fifth birthday.

That gives me twenty-six more years of suffering through White Sox baseball and Bears football.

It also gives me twenty six years of making dreams become reality.

What are my dreams?

I’m not one of those “I’m leaving Illinois once my kids are out of college” guys. I don’t want to move to Arizona or Florida for retirement. It’s fucking hot in those places. They have deadly snakes and spiders all over the fucking place.

I don’t mind going through a blizzard every six or seven years. I don’t want to move somewhere that has one hundred and ten degree days for fifty days in a row. I also don’t need to go somewhere that has hurricanes every year.

My dream is right here in the state, the county, the city I was born in 21,281 days ago.

I do dream about traveling….

I’d like to visit France and see the Eiffel Tower. I’d like to take a train around Great Britain from the tip of England to the top of Scotland.

I’d like to take a Winnebago from Chicago and travel across the northern states to Montana. Mozy down through Utah into the southwest and drive back east through Texas and Louisiana. Turn back north towards the Appalachians and visit Civil War Memorials out east. Then point my way back home through southern Indiana and back to Sweet Home Chicago.

Do I risk driving all those miles through parts of the country I’ve never been to? I have 9,723 days to get all of this done.

Before I set off on all of these dreams, I still need to build the foundation of dream makers that call me dad.

Right now I need to quit dreaming and put my pants on. Betty the Green Blazer needs gas. I need groceries, run errands and complete chores.

I also have a shit ton of people that I need to pray for....

mommies in iowa, boobs on the ohio river, brains at 16th and Capital, neighbors on the block, jojo’s in dupage, gramma’s in westchester, uncles in indiana, jayhawks west of mannheim, cousins in hometown…

…and a text I received from a friend at 1:36am. Texting me that he was being admitted into the hospital and asking that I talk to my heaven people for him.

I have 9,723 days of astonishment, risk taking and dream making.

So let’s get it on and get some astonishing in today.

October 4th, 2024

 I’m just happy it’s Friday morning. Let’s learn something new this weekend.

Be astonished

October 3rd, 2024

 “I always feel like somebody's watchin' me”……

That was a line from a one hit wonder in the mid eighties.

I have that feeling though. It isn’t a paranoid feeling, but more of a calm intuition.

Who is watching me?

Dead people!

People who I’ve known that have left for heaven can tune into my life whenever I think about them.

It’s a great way to kick grief to the curb and keep loved ones in your heart.

I think it all started with my parents telling me Santa can see all the dumb shit I was doing, God can see it as well. Then my Grampa died when I was young and he was watching everything that I was doing.

So fuck it!

If you knew me and are in heaven, you can see everything I do…

…and if you want to, you can stand right next to me while I’m doing stupid shit.

Before my Oldman died, he told me he was going to slap my ass the first time he sees me having sex from heaven.

“Moose… I’m going to be very careful not to embarrass the poor girl stupid enough to climb into bed with you, but when I’m in heaven and you’re in the sack having sex…

... I’m going to slap your big ass and let you know I’m watching you.”

So I’m walking around every day with God watching me. I have Santa Claus watching me. My Guardian Angel, Grampa John and his wife are watching me. My mom watches me and my dad is fucking with me.

Not to mention other family members and friends up in heaven watching down over me.

Who has fucking time to grieve the loss of loved ones when they never left?

Four years ago today my Oldman jumped on the Rock Island for heaven. The last thing he muttered to me was…

“You are a magnificent son of bitch…”

Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Early the next morning he went to heaven. Later that next afternoon he popped in and let me know that he was settled in.

I don’t mourn death. I don’t grieve loss. I watch what I do and try not to be a jagoff…

… because I have a feeling,somebody’s watching me!

It is going to be a gorgeous Thursday.

Go for a walk and be astonished.

Stop, turn around and catch a glimpse of all the angels walking close behind.

After reading today’s Morning Chalkboard you are going to be like that kid from “The Six Sense.”

I see dead people

October 2nd, 2024

 Humpday….

I just wrote five hundred words about my frustrated Tuesday. When I read them back, I got more frustrated and erased all five hundred words.

I’ll take the advice of today’s quote and replace the frustration with inspiration. It is perfect that today is the day of the year where poetry is used randomly.

A day where you pull some Shakespeare out of your ass or some Walt Whitman. Frost is always good and so is the weird poet, E.E. Cummings.

The one that most of us had to memorize is the infamous line from Macbeth… “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

It pretty much summarized the frustration Macbeth himself was going through on a Tuesday in October.

Here is my random act of poetry,

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. 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.”

I once could recite that whole thing. I couldn’t do it this morning.

No frustration today, just astonishment

October 1st, 2024

 Tuesday morning, never looked so good.

About the quote today…

…live and learn.

Make a mistake and look at it as a lesson in life. My Oldman would make a mistake and say that he’s working on his PHD in Dumbassitry.

Happy 100th birthday to the President of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

It is the first day of October already or like The Loop/97.9fm always called it, Rocktober.

It’s two for Tuesday on the first day of Rocktober.

“Let’s hear a two spot from ZZ Top followed by a couple from Lynyrd Skynyrd on the only station that knows how to rock Chicago!”

Be astonished and let’s rock hard today