Bears 2026 Schedule Release Video

The Bears schedule was released yesterday and apparently each team does so with a video. I guess thats what you get when you live in a gender reveal world. The video is actually quite good, so I decided to share it here.

Marty (1955) Movie Review

Tomorrow is the 71st anniversary of the premiere of Marty.    

I found this very good review to share.  

Tomorrow I celebrate the love of my life  and our wedding anniversary which is why I'm not sharing it tomorrow.

  

A Day After Easter Song

The past few weels leading up to Easter I saw a couple posts in some of the Facebook groups I'm in asking for song ideas for Easter playlists. This morning, which happened to be the day after Easter, I was listening to Spotify when this song came on.

 

I had this album on vinyl for many years and I had forgotten about this song.  As I listened to it I realized it's the perfect song for the day after Easter.

Easter is a very important day for the Christian world.  It's a very important day for the entire world.  One can easily make the argument that Good Friday and Easter are the crux of the Christian movement. (Interestingly, the word crux as defined by Merriam Webster as the most essential, pivotal, or decisive point of an issue, argument, or problem is derived form the Latin word for cross).  While I would not argue against that supposition , I would add that Christmas and the day after Easter are equally crucial (crucial originates from the Latin wor

d crux).  When I say Christmas I mean the incarnation of Jesus as God become man and when I say the day after Easter, I mean our reaction to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The lyrics can be found here.

I have also reprinted them below ...

He's in you.

He's risen from the dead.

He's in you.

Alive just like He said

It's over

The battle has been won.

The price is paid

Darkness now has faded 

Into his light

He's in you. 

The promise has come true.

He's In you

There's nothing left to do.

It's over.

His kingdom now is coming to your heart.

Just let the Master start

His work in you

Let him start.

He's in you.

The mysteries been revealed

He's in you.

By His spirit you've been sealed

It's over.

New life has begun now in the Son.

The Old has passed away,

Nailed to His Cross.

I pray that the Lord of Life

Will open up your eyes

I pray that you'll see this mystery.

I hope that you'll see that His holy place is open to you now.

You can enter in let his rest begin

He's in you.

He's risen from the dead.

He's in you.

Alive just like He said

It's over

The battle has been won.

The price is paid

Darkness now has faded 

Into his light

Into His Light

Amazing Grace

How Sweet he SOund

That Saved a wretch like me

You know I once was lost

But Now Am found

But now I see

You know I truly see.

I think life is a reaction to Easter.

This song does a very good job of summarizing that.

Adventure

 This is the first year since 2018 that I am not participating in the A to Z challenge. This is not an April Fool's joke.  I decided last year that I was going to take a sabbatical from one if not my most favorite blogging events.  I do plan to participate as a reader and commenter of other participating blogs.

April is also National Poetry Month, and this year I do plan to write some poems and publish them here.  I will even try to have the poem titles match the A to Z letter of the day.  To that end, I will now shre two haikus I wrote today on the back end of a impromptu road trip I took from Chicago area to St. Louis area and back today.  One is appropriately called Adventure

Adventure

Roads of adventure

Trees lay barren, friendship blooms

Memories echo

Here's the so far untitled other haiku

Lights from wind turbines

Silent thunder of crickets

Dusk train slumbers on

Since today is also Wednesday.  I thought I'd slip in one of my kid's favorite songs when growing up Adventure is A wonderful Thing from Winnie The Pooh's Grand Adventure as part of Midweek Music Break.  

Your A Commie Maybe

 I was subbing at a local middle school on Monday.  I don't sub very much at middle schools or highschools compared to how often I am in K-5  buildings.  This can be explained in a joke or with a more detailed explanation.  I will do both.

The Joke: They don't pay me enough to sub at Middle Schools, and too much to sub at high schools.

The Truth of the joke: Someone told me once that the key to working with middle schoolers is building relationships.  It is very difficult if not impossible, to build relationships with middle schools when you are a sub and you changing classes every 40 minutes.  The reason why I think I'm over paid to teach at High School is that compared to elementary, where you are generally teaching for the majority of the day, and middle school, where you are herding  disinterested and disrespectful cats in 45 minute intervals, you are basically taking attendance, announcing  the assignment and reading a book.  

For the 3 years prior to this school year, I spent the majority of my subbing at middle schools.  This was entirely as a long term sub, or a building sub.  Both of those positions involve getting to know the students and them getting to know me.  As a result, I was able to do far more teaching, far more relationship building and slightly less cat herding.  

Monday, I was subbing for a teacher I used to work with at the middle school I was  working the last 3 school years and I have subbed in her resource room 3 or 4 times already this year.  As a resource teacher, I either co-teach with another teacher or teach smaller classes of 5-8 students.  I also get to teach Math, which is one of my passions.

But that's not why I brought you here today,  (I know 5 paragraphs of intro, and not even my point.  What can I say I'm a professional communicator.) 

Today, I am here to share with you a video from the Social Studies class I co-taught on Monday.  

When Nothing's Sacred

A few weeks ago I saw this song by Billy Sprague on Spotify and was touched by how relevant it still is.  

 Most of the lines of the song start with People need or But. So in the notebook my daughter gave me for Christmas, I made two columns.  On one I wrote "People need ...  " and the other I wrote "but..." I have reprinted it without permission below.  But, I will add that the song was written by Billy Sprague and appears on his 1993 album The Wind and The Wave.  I just like how when laid out like this it looks like a list poem.  Even when you add the music it really is.

Note: There is a chorus in the middle of the song which also repeats at the end.  I will write the chorus at the end and put an * each time the chorus appears in the song.

When Nothing's Sacred

by Billy Sprague

People Need...                                                       But...

True love                                                              Chase infatuation

A hope                                                                  Live on short supply

Wisdom                                                                Get more education

Forgiveness                                                          Settle  things eye for eye

Identity                                                                 Satisfied with titles

A living God                                                         Seem content with idols

Destiny                                                                  Settle for careers*

Faith                                                                       Place their bets on science

A refuge                                                                  Stay out in the rain

Each other                                                              Rely on self reliance

Christmas                                                               Settle for a holiday

Dignity                                                                   Survive on ego

Truth                                                                       Will take an alibi

A savior                                                                   Much prefer a hero

(Most) long for heaven                                           Have settled for the sky*

And the soul remains unsettled and the world a wilderness.

In a time when nothings sacred and souls settle for less.

I really wanted to share a live performance of this song and could not find one of Billy Sprague performing it but did find this video of Gary Hall Peck covering it. I think this is a very good rendition of it.

 

A Packers & Bears Fan Reaction to the Wild Card Round

I absolute this video. When you get to the 1:42 mark, that was definitely me the entire first half.

Dave’s Eulogy For His Mom

Today, it has been 1 month since the passing of my Mom.  This is the first time I have mentioned here on the blog.  It is still too raw for me to process, but I thought this might be a good place to post the brief comments I made at her visitation service the day before her funeral.

    

Should Mark Buehrle be Elected into the Hall of Fame?

Today is the 5th of January and the first day of the second semester.  As good of time as any to get the discussion going about who should be elected into Baseballs Hall of Fame as the announcement as to whether and who the Baseball Writer's Association of America (BBWAA) elected to that August group will be made later this month.  

Here is some analysis as to whether Mark Buehrle should be enshrined in Cooperstown.  I'll be back later this month to share my feelings on Buerhle and the others who are appearing  the BBWAA ballot.

Two Thoughts on Life

Robert Redford and Rob Reiner were two of my favorite actors turned directors.  They both passed away in the last 4 months of  2025 and as a result I've been thinking about them and their work.  Yesterday, quite by accident, a movie quote popped into my mind.  I could not place the movie at first, so I googled it and soon this scene was on my phone.

 

 

This quote from The Natural, although said to Redford's Roy Hobbs rather than by him,   informs and leads  the protagonist to the decisions that makes up the film's climax.

Thinking of Redford naturally made me think of Reiner. Thinking of Reiner led to thinking of the Princess Bride, which led me to this brief scene.  

In reviewing the context of both of these scenes, the hard fact that life is painful cannot be denied.   Both characters were denied (albeit temporarily)  true love due to circumstances beyond their control. The quotes are both delivered to their respective true loves when at each point of the film a happily ever after doesn't seem to be in the cards.  

Hope and bitterness both carry transformative powers.  The concept of hope in the line "the life you learn with, and the life you live with" says to me, yes life is pain, but much like pain you endure in a fire swamp you can learn from that pain.  Thinking that life is only pain can create a bitterness that is hard to overcome.  I am glad  that the 4 characters depicted in these scenes found their happy endings.  When I think of Redford and Reiner and all the stories they told through their acting and directing, it makes me sad that their lives have ended (especially in the tragic way Reiner's ended ) but glad that I am still learning about life through their work.  

Close Only Counts in Horseshoes, Hand Grenades and placing 0-2 Notre Dame in the AP top 25

Today, is my last post of the year.  I originally started this one  September 14th after the AP writers release this, their 4th college poll of the year.  The University of Illinois was 3-0 and they got ranked 9th to show that,  The University of Tennessee was 2-1 having just lost 44-41 to the University of Georgia  in overtime so they were rewarded for their loss by staying put at 15th.  This may seem unfair to some of the 17 other teams along with U of I ranked in the AP top 25 who started 3-0  especially the 8 3-0 teams ranked below TN all because the Volunteers played the Bulldogs close.

However one team dropped inexplicably in the rankings and they certainly had a bigger axe to grind than the 3-0 teams who felt slighted by TN.  This team had started the year ranked 6th in the preseason poll .  The next week they dropped from 6th to 9th.  They had a bye week in week 2 so they were able to jump us from 9th to 8th but then the indignity of plummeting, freed falling, dropping from 9th to 24th.  

This of course was South Bend Indiana's gift to Football itself, Notre Dame.  What did Notre Dame do to deserve this national embarrassment?  Failure to achieve any of the goals they set for themselves?  No, I think that might just be too on the nose for the AP writers.  Notre Dame had lost their first game and then after 2 weeks to think about it lost their 2nd game.  Now, they only lost by a total of 4 points, so that was plenty of reason to place them above undefeated U.S.C. (who beat their 3 opponents by 115 points),  and BYU (+93 point differential in their 2 games). 

I mean that's crazy? How entitled can BYU get complaining thinking that their 2-0 start should be rewarded and place ahead of a team that could at that point  in the season  count all their victories with no hands.

I meant to get that out much sooner than today, but Notre Dame started winning and my original post got relegated to draft status.  I always like to resurrect a post or two from draft status near the end of the year and I thought the title of this post, alone, merited an end of the year reprieve.

Yesterday Illinois and Tennessee met for the first time on the gridiron in the music city bowl here are the highlights.

Tom Howard / Randy Stonehill, live concert, December 30, 1978

Beltin' Melton The Bill Melton Story

Full documentary: The Edmund Fitzgerald (2025)

50 Years ago today the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. The disaster inspired Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 hit "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald"

If You get a chance you may enjoy this hour long documentary.

"Moments" | Pierce Pettis | "Studio-A: New Music" | WFSU-TV (1983)

As we speak, I am watching Pierce Pettis in concert in Lake Forest (Go Bears!) Illinois. I was first famiiar with Mr. Pettis' work as a song writer in the late 1980. He wrote I don't ever want to live without You which is a cornerstone of Randy Stonehill's 1989 Return to Paradise. This song Moments is the title tune of his 1984 independently released debut album. Bot sure if he'll play it today, but it should be a good concert either way.

45th Anniversary of 1980 All Star Game

On This Day 45 years ago White Sox Pitcher Ed Farmer faced Pete Rose in the 1980 All Star Game. This was back when the Houston Astros were in the National League and the Milwaukee Brewers were in the American. In the 6th inning with 1 out, Farmer pitched to Rose who hit a ground ball to 2nd Willie Randolph, who flipped the ball to SS Robin Yount for the 1st out and then threw out Rose at First Base.

 

Special Shout out to Sox Nerd who reminded me of this play in his Jan 1, 2025 post, Pete Rose and The White Sox. Rose passed away in 2024, and Farmer in 2020, making the footage from my youth feel even  more poignant. 

Dick Allen's Famous Chili Dog Game

Today is the 53rd anniversary Dick Allen's Chili Dog Home Run.  

This is also the first year we can watch this video without wondering when Dick will finally make it into the Hall of Fame. 

This video pays tribute to a day famous in White Sox lore.  

 

Breakfast Serials: Marty Television Presentation 1953 Part 1

On April 11th 1955, The Film Marty premiered. It would go on to be nominated for 8 Academy Awards and win 4 Best Film. Best Director: Delbert Mann, Best Actor: Ernest Borgnine and Best Screenplay: Paddy Chayefsky.  

Chayefsky's screenplay was adapted from a television play  he wrote which was performed live in The Philco Television Hour in 1953.  Each Tuesday in June at 6:30 A.M. central I will be posting a section from the television program with some fun facts at the end.  Since I am showing these in serialized fashion, and showing them in the a.m., I am calling them Breakfast Serials.

Marty 1953 Part I

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Fun Fact:  Esther Minciotti, Joe Mantell, and Augusta Ciolli  who played The respective parts of Marty's Mom ,best friend, and Aunt  all reprised these roles in the 1955 film.  Mantell was nominated for best supporting actor Oscar but did not win.   

Join us next week for another installment of Marty.  

UKRAINE | ALLEN LEVI