Posted on 12/05/2008 11:11:43 AM PST by qam1
You don’t know what you are missing.
“What am I missing?”
What you are missing is about 10-40 years. To really appreciate and miss the good ole days of the Holiday season, and to look back at it with humor, you have to have lived through it.
>>I used to take several packages a day to the Post Office and anytime I had a package marked fragile one of the Ladies at the counter would say “Fra-gee-eh-lee” and someone in the back would shout: “Must be Italian” and almost everyone in line would laugh. <<
There are some things that just become vernacular in the USA!
Don’t feel sorry for us... we don’t... We love the movie so...go feel sorry for someone else. Merry Christmas.
Exactly.
In God We Trust-All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd
I've got that book on the nightstand right now, as a matter of fact.
Even before the movie came out, I was a huge Shep fan. His radio show used to be carried in Chicago in the '70s and I would listen to it. Then his book, "In God We Trust," was made into a couple of TV productions, "Phantom of the Open Hearth" and "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" (carried on PBS, I think). Then came the theatrical movie, "A Christmas Story."
More on Shep here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0791789
Some of Shep's radio broadcasts are available on the Net and on disc sets. He was a great storyteller.
BTW, Jean Shepherd himself has an on-screen cameo in "A Christmas Story," as a guy standing in line at the department store:
Plaxie: (Plaxie is shoved down the slide, but he stops himself and climbs back up) No! No! I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.
Santa Claus: You'll shoot your thigh out, kid.
Reading the story was even better. So was “Ollie Hopnoodles Haven of Bliss”. The Old Man {dad} in the movies was really to mellow when compared to the Old Man in the written stories who strted every day smoking a couple of Lucky’s and drinking hot scalding coffee. No one dared approach him till he had them :>}
Plaxie: (Plaxie is shoved down the slide, but he stops himself and climbs back up) No! No! I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.
Santa Claus: You'll shoot your thigh out, kid.
Hah, hah, hah...so do we!!!! :)
check it out and watch the whole movie then maybe you’ll see what you are missing.
did the same for my husband. Ha,ha.
You betcha!!!!
One of my favorite movies, and I’m 35! My mom loves it because it reminds her of growing up during the 50s (although the movie was set in the 40s).
I don’t know how some can actually not find something humorous about this movie...even if you don’t like to watch the whole thing.
lol
As others have said, it is a great depiction of American life, American people, and American families at the time and place of its setting. It strikes a chord. You can say the same thing about National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation.”
There is quite of bit of Jean Shepherd in the old time radio archives. Just google it.
I have. If they characters were played the way the stories were actually written it would have an R rating most likely :>} Especially because of The Old Man LOL. Great books and stories though. TRy the book "In GOD we trust all others pay cash" and I think the book titled "Wanda Hickeys night of golden memories". Herbie goes to the prom in that one and gets sick on Boilermakers. His nearly getting married in a Polish Wedding was another funny classic :>}
There is a treasure trove of old WOR air checks and club appearances available on the Internet (flicklives.com is a good place to start). Check out his reading of Robert Service poems at Christmas time (The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Cremation of Sam McGee, The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill) - all classic stuff read by a master. I've got other sites bookmarked at home if you're interested.
As for books, after In God We Trust, I would recommend Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories (and Other Disasters), and Fist Full of Fig Newtons (some terrific army stories in there).
Excelsior!
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting. Sydney J. Harris
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