August 5th, 2022

 I’m pretty lucky that I’ve enjoyed going to work everyday throughout my career. Not many can say that and many more would love to be in my shoes.

The work days sure pile up. One day you’re running your first order into the soybean pit and the next day you’re the second oldest guy in the office.

Today is National Underwear Day. This day is always celebrated in early August. I can never take part because I’m a commando guy from Mother’s Day until Columbus Day.

Sometime around the new millennium my girlfriend at the time came over on a Thursday night. I made a lush dinner and we chilled to “Ally McBeal.” Not my pick… I was trying to get laid.

Thursday night was also laundry night. So I’m folding clothes while I entertain.

I was an old school boxer guy in this era. I didn’t find the comfort of boxer briefs until a few years later.

So I’m folding my boxers. I probably had a dozen or so. Plaid, stripes, polka dots, more plaid, leopards, and a couple solid colors.

The girlfriend is sitting on the other end of the couch. She asks me, “Why do you have so many pillow cases?”

I should have known then that this was a red flag… don’t marry this girl!

Anyway… put on some clean underwear and enjoy your Friday!

Dog days of Summer… first weekend of August and another blast from Mother Nature’s furnace!

Be like Jumbo… GoldBond up and let the team dangle.

August 4th, 2022

 Nows…… they add up and we lose track of them all. Now’s melt into a collection of yesterdays, last weeks, last months and last years.

I gotta take a shower now. I gotta get gas now. I gotta go to work now.

These are the kinds of things we are doing right now, but it’s the things we don’t know we are doing right now… those are the ones that matter.

What are you going to do now?

Make it count whatever it is.

August 3rd, 2022

 More and more of us know someone who has a hyphen. A friend, a sibling, a colleague and the hardest hyphen of all… a parent.

Today is one of my hyphen days…

8/3/1937 - 5/6/2016

The hyphen is everyday of our lives. A hyphen is bookended by our arrival and our departure.

If you are reading this you have only arrived. You are still working on your hyphen. A hyphen might look like a straight line dangling in the middle.

Oh, buts it’s more than that! It’s really that long and winding road Sir Paul sings about. It’s love, it’s struggle, it’s wins and it is losses.

You make that hyphen. That hyphen is all you and when you put your departure date up your story is told.

Hyphen!

Today I celebrate the arrival date of my Ma, Cecilia Marie Zoellner Shepley.

I think of the hyphen she created and the grief I felt on the departure. I don’t grieve any longer because I see my mom often. I’m sure she’ll stop by today and let me rest my forehead on hers.

Happy birthday Ma…. I’m still working on my hyphen so you’ll have to wait for my departure a little longer.

It will be heavenly when we celebrate together again….

….and thanks for keeping an eye on the Shepkids for me.

August 2nd, 2022

 Bill Russell retired from the Celtics before I could remember watching him play.

He was the first athlete that I remember my dad saying, “he was a solid basketball player, but he was an even better man.”

Today I used Bill Russell’s quote that my Oldman used often before I left for work as a young man.

Today a close friend from my years down in Indianapolis is another year older.

Both of us were Bear fans, Cub and Sox fans, Pacer fans and exiled to Indianapolis from Illinois because of divorce.

So it was a good fit.

My dad called him Gallipoli and after I moved back home Bobby would visit often.

My buddy left Oak Park after a long Chicago Bear weekend and as he pulled away my dad said, “a good friend is someone that you don’t see everyday, but when you do it’s like that friendship never missed a beat.”

Happy Birthday Bobby Grilliot!

We don’t see each other very much, but I think of you often and our near death adventures.

August 1st,2022

 It’s early on a Monday morning and I’m sitting on the balcony. The wind is blowing gently across the top of the trees. The leaves are starting to sound arthritic with the late summer breeze.

The lions are roaring across the DesPlaines River from their den at Brookfield Zoo.

The week has started off…. Hell, the month has started off with a vomiting child and an overnight error that needed to be covered.

My mom told me if a child lays down and says their belly hurts be prepared for vomit at some point.

My mom nudge me just before the sound of a vomiting throat.

Her soft voice coming down from heaven…..

“Maybe you should have put a bucket next to Hazel’s bed last night?”

The bucket wasn’t there for the first pile of Comiskey Park delicacies. It was there for the second and third sessions.

As for the error….

One of my first bosses, Larry Dorf told me when a broker has an error to get out immediately.

A broker is not a trader. Cut your losses and move along.

So the month of August has started with a debit and a pile of eaten hot dogs…

The Sox are just at 500 and the cubs are back to where they are supposed to be.

1977 was the best year for me when it comes to Chicago baseball. On August 1st, 1977 the Southside Hitmen were 62-39. The cubbies were 61-42. Both in first place.

They both shit the bed in August and September and ended up in third.

I’m in first place right now and don’t plan on ending up in third.

July 31st, 2022

 Best of today…. It’s going to be a sunny Sunday, high of 86 in Chicagoland.

The sun came up at 5:44am and will set at 8:10.

Sox game today with dear friends.

Enjoy this last day of July and the beginning of August.

July 30th, 2022

 It was fun listening to the plans the guys at work had for the Mega Million money.

Boats, baseball teams, cabins, farms, vacations……

I kept my mouth shut and just listened to my work friends. Twenty people assured that they were splitting one billion dollars this weekend.

I always say the odds are better that I’ll bang Julia Roberts before ever winning a big lottery drawing.

I mean they really are….

…. Winning the Mega Millions has a 1 in 303 million odds. The odds of Julia Roberts and Jumbo becoming lovers… 12 to 1.

Just think about it for a minute.

Julia is filming a movie in Chicago. Her limousine drives in front of the Board of Trade right when I’m leaving.

“Driver! Stop! Pull the limo next to that man with that big beautiful booty!”

Next thing you know my trading jacket is balled up in a corner of a fancy hotel and I’m sitting in a bubble bath with a pretty woman eating Mystic pizza.

Anyway… no glazed donuts with Julia and I’m going back to work on Monday.

I’ll tell you what I’d do if I won….

I’d build a Vocational Rugby Academy on the Southside and another on the Westside.

We would teach young Chicago men and women how to scrum, ruck and maul. It would be a school that would educate their students in welding, plumbing, web design, carpentry, construction management, pipe-fitting and electrician work.

"Chicago Rugby Academy" Home of the Warriors. An Indian would be our mascot and success and support would be our goal.

That’s all I’d want…

No Julia Roberts pubes on the roof of my mouth!

Just kids with no future suddenly playing rugby and fixing shitters…

That’s my lottery dream!

…And I’d live in the Edgewater Beach Apartments.

Last weekend of July… the days are getting shorter, but the first week of August brings a heatwave!

Go to Walgreens this weekend and get a fresh bottle of GoldBond.

July 29th, 2022

Miserable people come and go throughout our life. It’s a good practice to know their name when they’re around because you’ll forget it when they are gone.

These are the people that are jealous of your creativity, your integrity and your life.

They bring nothing good to the world and try to leave their misery at your door step.

Keep steady your path because the bad people will return to their lonely world and wait for the next target.

Always remember the worst day of your life is better than most peoples best day.

….. “Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone"

They walk on.

July 28th, 2022

 Everyday we see the post or meme that talks about approaching people carefully. There is a good chance they are going through a bad situation.

These days it sure as hell is true!

If you make your bed in the morning and treat people kindly throughout the day….

….you can put your head on that pillow at night knowing you did your part. You made the world better.

My Dad and I would get in the car and drive to 18th and Damen. On the Northeast corner was a rickety old building and in it was Bishop’s Chili.

Even though there was a Bishop’s at Harlem and Roosevelt, five minutes from our house. My dad had to drive to the one in the city.

“Better chili at this one son!”

He was right…. and they had Green River and Filberts root beer.

I could go for a chili dog, a Tom Tom tamale and a root beer from Bishop’s today. What made it better was the drive with my Oldman. Cigarette smoke and all.

My dad showed me all the great joints in Chicago. He also taught me to be the person everyone seeks when they search for kindness.

Bishop’s has been torn down. My dad drives his Cadillac in heaven, but kindness and chili dogs are still around.

Sometimes they’re hard to find… you just gotta know where to look.

Be Kind and eat chili dogs!

July 27th, 2022

 We have over extended ourselves. We have stretched things out too far.

Last night I turned on the White Sox game and they were playing a purple team that I wasn’t familiar with…
Why can’t it be easy like it was in 1972? That’s when my memory begins with professional sports.
Baseball had 24 teams and the AL played the NL only in the All-star Game and the World Series.
No inter league bullcrap!
…. And Dick Allen was the MVP and he was on our Sox.
Football had 26 teams and even though the Bears sucked… they had Butkus and Buffone.
Hockey had 16 teams and that was two too many… they had two new teams and one was from Atlanta! All the Uncles bitched about hockey in the south!
Oh and the Blackhawks lost in the championship.
Basketball? Well back then there was a team called the Bulls….there was a team called the Harlem Globetrotters and then there was my team.
… and did I take grief in the neighborhood for my team!
“Indiana Pacers? This is Chicago! You can’t be a Pacer fan!”
Well I was and they were the ABA champions….
Let’s just make it simple and eliminate any team established after 1976!
Let’s return the gas lid on our cars underneath the license plate and let’s bring back the “Lawrence Welk Show.”
K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid!
These poor kids are under pressure to remember all these starting lineups for 150 teams…. Some from far places!
So hard these days…. Go White Sox, Go cubs, Go Bears, Go Blackhawks, Go Pacers… everyone else…. Go Home!