Jean Shepherd

In my high school years I listened to Jean Shepherd on late night radio.  So did my good friends Bob Seltzer and Bob Brewin.  We were the outcasts, the underground, the (proud) eccentrics of our school, Jonathan Dayton Regional High.   Our way to escape and hang out together was to be the high school stage crew.   That got us out of study and hall and on our on in the auditorium and its stage.   I loved the big huge handles that dimmed all the multicolor lights.   We even had stage footlights that flipped up.   Sometimes I ran the spotlight from the back of the auditorium.   I liked putting the colored gels in the light.   I can remember how hot that thing got and how it smelled when it heated up the dust lying on top when you first turned it on.   I could also control the sound from back there.   One time our vice principal was ranting at the kids during assembly about some misdeed(s.)   I was disgusted and turned off his mike and lights.   Never got caught.   Claimed it was a mistake.  Haha!

Well back to Jean Shepherd.   He had a late night talk show every week night on WOR radio (NYC) from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.  He tas a comedian, philosopher, misanthrope.   He told stories of his youth, talked about cars, and got folks involved in pranks.   One time he made up a book title and got his legions of adolescents to go into book stores to request a non existent book.   It apparently got on the best seller list without even existing.   Later he did write a book by that name.   I think it was Invictus.   One of his favorite sayings was Excelsior You Fathead!   I've listened now to some archival mp3's.   I'm not as wild about him as I was as a teenager.   I can also see that he was (perhaps) a model for Garrison Keilor and other story teller humorists.   Part of the appeal may have been the illicit staying up with the radio way past midnight on school nights.   I can still remember my old black plastic clock radio (yes analog!) with the plastic bars and cloth grate over the speaker.   The clock radio controls were tiny and hopelessly not user friendly.   If you didn't have the clock set to radio, the alarm was a really horrible buzz saw whiny grrrrrrr.

For Seltzer, Brewin, and me, Jean Shepherd fueled our "looking for a place to lodge" rebelliousness.  We were lurching towards the left and occasionally called ourselves socialists......without a clue what that meant.  Caught between beatnik and hippie, we didn't have a categorized cultural home.   We liked jazz and went into NYC to Birdland to hear jazz.   Birdland had a "peanut gallery"  that meant there was a non alcoholic place for young teenagers like us.  One time we went down to the village with the the total intent to "pick up" some girls.   Well we were sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park and some young ladies came by.   Seltzer or Brewin made some "pick up" remarks.   The ladies looked at us and copped to our ages, and said, "we're old enough to be your mothers!"   They werent'!  But they were older.   We felt seriously defeated.

One last bit of teenage ridiculousness.   Seltzer and I sometimes hung out in the Newberry's five and dime after school.   They had  lunch counter where we'd sometimes have ice cream sodas.  We also had a nasty nasty prank.   Remember those glass sugar shakers with the stainless cap and the little flap for the sugar.   Well the sides of those shakers were completely vertical, so we could (and did) take off the cap, hold a napkin over the top, flip the shaker over 180 degrees over onto the counter, pull out the napkin, and replace the stainless top on what was now the facing up bottom.   So when someone thought to lift the shaker.......sugar all over the place.   Usually this was harmless, but once a lady with a fur coat did it and got quite a mess of sugar all through her coat.   We felt pretty bad and never did it again.

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