In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

I see from the posted reviews that most people know Jean Shepherd from his books and movies -- all of which are great -- but that was not his primary medium, the medium in which he excelled far beyond anyone either living or dead: radio. Mr. Shepherd had a half hour radio show just about every night in New York City in the 1960's, and possibly back into the 1950's. It was a hypnotic show, and he had a vast following. I used to scrunch down under the covers in bed with my transistor radio to catch his virtuosos performance every chance I got. He was a wild guy. I think he was thrown off the air at least once for disparaging the quality of his own advertisers! One time he almost started a riot at Coney Island. He was totally irreverent. And the uncontested king of radio patter. I was always amazed at how fresh and funny he was, night after night. It's a shame we don't have any of those shows as recordings. All we've got is the books and movies. Oh well. Time marches on. Just wanted you to know this man's real genius. I can still hear his theme music . . . it sounded like horses lining up at a race track and charging forward madly. The man definitely had a message.

When Jean Shepherd died this Fall (10/15/99), we not only lost one of America's greatest humorists and a Christmas icon, we also lost a man who has discretely changed how all of us remember childhood. In fact, his influence is so subtle, that you may not even know who he was; but I guarantee, you do know him. Jean Shepherd is the narrator of, and the stories from this book are the basis for, the instant classic yuletide movie, A Christmas Story.Most of the episodes from the film are here, including, of course, the Red Ryder BB Gun Saga, the Leg Lamp Incident, The F Word Debacle, etc. and Shepherd's contribution to our collective psyche is that we remember both these events and similar events from our own childhoods in Capital Letters now. In the same way, and at the same time, as Tom Wolfe was getting us to think, not of radical chic and the right stuff, but of Radical Chic! and The Right Stuff!, Shepherd was likewise taking the seemingly common stuff of boyhood memory and elevating it to mythic status. So for most of us, when we look back into the mists of memory, we don't simply recall "the time we broke the window", rather we summon forth "The Broken Window Incident". At least, I know I do.Read the paragraphs below & see if you haven't subconsciously internalized the cadences, impossibly graphic immediacy and recall, mild exaggerations for comedic effect and epic tone in your own recollections:First on getting ready to leave the house in Winter: Preparing to go to school was like getting ready for extended Deep-Sea Diving. Longjohns, corduroy knickers, checkered flannel Lumberjack shirt, four sweaters, fleece-lined leatherette sheepskin, helmet, goggles, mittens with leatherette gauntlets and a large red star with an Indian Chief's face in the middle, three pairs of sox, high-tops, overshoes, and a sixteen foot scarf wound spirally from left to right until only the faint glint of two eyes peering out of a mound of moving clothing told you that a kid was in the neighborhood. There was no question of staying home. It never entered anyone's mind. It was a hardier time, and Miss Bodkin was a hardier teacher than the present breed. Cold was something that was accepted, like air, clouds, and parents; a fact of Nature, and as such could not be used in any fraudulent scheme to stay out of school. My mother would simply throw her shoulder against the front door, pushing back the advancing drifts and stone ice, the wind raking the living-room rug with angry fury for an instant, and we would be launched, one after the other, my brother and I, like astronauts into unfriendly Arctic space. The door clanged shut behind us and that was it. It was make school or die! Scattered out over the icy waste around us could be seen other tiny befurred jots of wind-driven humanity. All painfully toiling toward the Warren G. Harding School, miles away over the tundra, waddling un

Ever since I saw the movie "A Christmas Story" for the first time on TNT I fell in love with the eloquent writing of Jean Shepherd. The book "In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash" is the funniest and most clever of all of the books I have ever read. For all of you twenty-year-olds who think this book is just another 50's boring sock hop cheesy story, think again. This book will have you on the floor in convulsions because of the non-stop laughter. BUY THIS BOOK :)

Jean Shepherd is dead, but his genius lives on. Shepherd is one of the great writers of our time. Nobody has ever written with more insight into the child's mind. I could rave on about the literary merits of his work, but let's cut to the chase... "In God We Trust, All Other's Pay Cash" is laugh out loud funny! If you were lucky enough to have heard Shepherd on WOR radio it's even better, since Shep's voice will echo in your head. I love Jean Shepherd. I wanted to be Jean Shepherd. Buy this book and pass it on.