Jean Sheperd and Hammond, Indiana

 Jean was born on the south side of Chicago but was raised in the Hessville (east) section of Hammond, Indiana. I myself was born in the more central section of Hammond and raised predominately on the north side of Hammond. Jean graduated from Hammond High School in 1938 whereas I graduated from Hammond High in 1960. That's about the only things we have in common but reading his stories fills my mind with my own experiences and memories in Hammond.

 Back in my younger days I read a couple of Jean's books, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters". I have also seen his PBS movie, "Phantom of the Open Hearth".

Most people, I think, have discovered Jean Sheperd through the movie "A Christmas Story", about a young boy named Ralph and his youth in Hohman, Indiana near the steel mills and oil refineries. I've just read "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" again and it brings forth memories of my youth and the area in and around Hammond. Jean has Named his town Hohman but in fact is was Hammond. The Hohman's were the first settlers in what is now Hammond and Hammond was a man who opened a meat packing business there. Most of the other locations have had their real names used. 

Hammond is just one city that makes up what is called the "Calumet Area" or the "Region". You can cross a street and be in another city, like East Chicago or Gary where the big steel mills are located or into Whiting or again East Chicago where the refineries are located. Bedroom communities, located just to the south, are Munster, Dyer, Schererville, Highland and Griffith which in Jean's time and also my youth, were small farm communities.

For stories sake I think Jean mixes some things just to make his story more interesting and amusing. For instance; he talks about Cedar Lake, which is located about 18 miles south of Hammond, being pretty much a mud hole and having a dance hall and roller rink. Actually Cedar Lake was very nice and a place to escape to on hot weekends to go boating or if you really had money you might have owned a summer cabin on the lake. It eventually got polluted from the sewers running into the lake. That has since been cleaned up but Cedar Lake will never attain the height of it's glory days. I don't remember the rolling rink but it could have been there as there were several roller rinks in Hammond and surrounding towns. The dance hall I remember as it was built on pilings over the lake. It eventually burned down as did Madura's Dance Land on the north end of Hammond. Anyway I think he mixed Cedar Lake with Wolf Lake, which is on the north side of Hammond, and described the Grand Calumet River which was a sewer for the industries that lined it. Although there were bridges across the river I think you could have crossed it safely by foot other than the possibility of getting chemical burns.

Downtown Hammond was great for shopping and had about everything you would need in just a few blocks. Goldblatt's is mentioned in the books and it was a great department store of 4 or 5 stories. It had a unique odor when you entered emanating from the basement meat store and deli. My Dad smoked Dutchmaster Special cigars and Goldblatt's was the only place he could find them. Most of the shopping was on Hohman Avenue which ran north and south and State and Sibley Streets which ran east and west. State Street also ran across the Illinois State Line into Calumet City and it's world renowned strip of bars and strip joints.

 Hammond had at least four rail yards and was crisscrossed by rail lines from the East and South going through Hammond on the way to and from Chicago. Those rail lines crossing through downtown Hammond causing a shopper to have to wait for a train going from stores on Hohman Avenue to stores on State Street and the advent of the "shopping center", brought the death of shopping in downtown Hammond. Hammond had a street car system which by the time I came around was replaced by city busses but the tracks were still visible in the streets. The South Shore Railroad runs from Chicago to South Bend and during my youth it's tracks followed or ran down the middle of the road through East Chicago, Gary, Michigan City and South Bend.

 Jean mentions Harrison Park as an assembly point for parades in Hammond but in my days they assembled on Sohl Avenue behind Hammond High School which faces on Calumet Avenue. Parades would proceed from Sohl down Highland Street, past our house until I was 10, to Hohman and then head north past Harrison Park to downtown. Back then we didn't have swimming pools at the city parks until the 1950's, we had lagoons and Harrison Park had a double lagoon with a bridge across the center. They had sand beaches for summer swimming and warming houses for winter ice skating. I was named after my Dad's younger brother who drowned in the Harrison Park lagoon at age 8. I spent many a winter's day ice skating at Harrison Park and also Douglas (now Pulaski) Park on the north side of Hammond.

There were 5 movie theaters and 2 drive-in movies that are now all gone along with the drive-in restaurants that we as teenagers would cruise. I think it was a good, safe place to grow up.