Hearing a Memory

The TV stations began showing the 1983 movie A Christmas Story this past week.

Every year I watch it over and over, picking out different memories each time: the story, the desks in the classroom, the dish detergent boxes in the background of the kitchen, the coal furnace battle, the kid wrapped up in his snowsuit, the alleys – there is just so much.

But it was this year that I realized that I was hearing an important memory – the voice of Jean Shepherd, the writer and narrator of A Christmas Story.

Growing up in New Jersey, I was the recipient of a passed-down wooden AM radio that sat on top of the small bookcase-nightstand next to my bed, and that radio was tuned to WOR where storyteller Jean Shepherd reigned from 10:15 to 11 p.m. every night.

All through junior high school and high school as I got ready for bed I listened to the news from 10 to 10:15 [I guess I was a news junkie even then.], and then, just as I snuggled in and turned out the light, Jean Shepherd’s theme music came on and he began telling his tales of growing up in the Midwest.

As the years passed I felt I knew his hometown and his friends and his family. And of course at that age I felt the stories he told were so much more exciting than my own family's tales.

Just think what he could have done on the internet. And he would have made a great blogger!

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I can’t find a show like that any more, but “Shep” still has his fans. There are entire websites: www.flicklives.com and discussion forums: www.sheptalk.com, a Wikipedia entry, and the house where the movie was filmed has been restored and is open for tours.

Jean Shepherd (1921-1999) was on WOR from 1956 to 1977. He also wrote books and magazine articles.

Jerry Seinfeld is quoted as crediting Jean Shepherd for some of his "comedic sensibility."

For those of you unlucky enough to not be familiar with Shep's work: www.keyflux.com/shep/madtxt.htm