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Tavern Shepherd made famous is all about the region
BY MARK KIESLING
Times Columnist
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 12:34 AM CDT
Within the last 10 days, I have been in the two most famous bars in America.
While on vacation in Boston, we stopped in for dinner at Cheers, the bar across from the city's Public Garden made famous by the TV show of the same name.
On Monday, after learning that Jean Shepherd is to be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in November, I celebrated by heading to Flick's Tap, the watering hole made famous in Shepherd's written and broadcast accounts of growing up in fictional Hohman, Ind. -- a mighty thin disguise for Hammond.
Shepherd, whose radio programs from New York City were wildly popular in the 1950s and 1960s, wrote and narrated the consummate celluloid Christmas celebration, "A Christmas Story," in 1983.
In the book on which the film was based -- "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" -- Shepherd reminisces about his youth in Hohman on a return visit home during a give-and-take with childhood friend Flick, now the proprietor of Flick's Tap in the old neighborhood.
The two trade yarns, Flick in awe of life in New York, Shepherd's narrator charmingly condescending toward his old stomping grounds with its used car lots, bowling alleys and corner candy stores.
But while Hohman is semi-fictional, Flick's is not.
It existed when Shepherd grew up at 2907 Cleveland St. in Hammond's Hessville neighborhood, the son of Jean and Anne Shepherd, and it exists today, although at a different location (the original was on the northeast corner of 165th Street and Kennedy Avenue).
The "new" Flick's has been at 6205 Kennedy Ave. for more than a quarter of a century.
I'm guessing Jean Shepherd never visited it. I met him only once, in 1984 at a reading of his works at the Lake County Public Library in Munster, and even at that time he seemed more than a little condescending toward the Calumet Region whose stories -- told largely unabridged -- had brought him fame.
I think in retrospect he was somewhat angry with his home area for not giving him the respect he found on the East Coast and later on the West Coast, but that's a little surprising given his portrayal of the majority of locals as lunch bucket-toting wage slaves of the steel mills and oil refineries.
I mean, what did he want from these people? They respected hard work with hands and back, not sitting in front of a microphone on WOR radio from, of all places, New York City. It was a picture just a little too hoity-toity, thanks, for the region working man and Shepherd recognized this in "In God We Trust" where Flick endures stories of the Big Apple just long enough to be able to inject the latest news from Hohman's bowling alleys.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say Cheers and Flick's are America's two most famous taverns, at least from the 20th Century. Name me another.
Cheers was, of course, mass marketed and has its own cute gift shop both at its original Beacon Street location and at its namesake in the city's trendy Quincy Market area.
Flick's remains a cult favorite, more of a place where everyone really does know your name. It's out of the way for a visitor to Chicago, who will almost certainly need a Sherpa guide to find it, or at least MapQuest.
"It's a corner bar, a friendly bar," said bartender Janie Nagy, who has worked here for six or seven years. "I love it here. The owner (Martha Convery) is just like family to me. She's had the bar for 18, 19 years and never changed the name. I guess it's good for business, you know?"
The people in the bar today -- I missed 50-cent draft Tuesday by a day -- talk about the things that would have fit right in with Shepherd's reminisces.
It's about tires and gas mileage, getting a job after being laid off, region stuff. No one's worried about cloning dogs or Supreme Court nominees. The closest it gets to national issues is a discussion of Peter Jennings' death.
"He didn't have a college degree, you know," an older man remarks.
Janie says she didn't know much about Shepherd before starting her job, but has learned. "Yes, this is the place," she says when asked if this is the Flick's Tap of the Shepherd broadcasts and novels. "People ask me stuff I don't know," she confides. "But I've learned a lot since I've been here."
Unlike Cheers, which has a big gift store attached and is marketing-friendly, Flick's is what it is, and is what it was: A neighborhood bar. It's a cult destination, and Janie has become familiar with the crowd that stops in to visit.
"We don't get a lot, but we've had more in the past few weeks," she said, adding a large party recently stopped in to celebrate with a lengthy stay at Shepherd's legendary bar.
She could have worked at any one of more than a dozen bars that line this strip of Kennedy Avenue, but she works at Flick's. Does she like the extra attention?
"Of course," she said. "Who wouldn't?"
BY MARK KIESLING
Times Columnist
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 12:34 AM CDT
Within the last 10 days, I have been in the two most famous bars in America.
While on vacation in Boston, we stopped in for dinner at Cheers, the bar across from the city's Public Garden made famous by the TV show of the same name.
On Monday, after learning that Jean Shepherd is to be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in November, I celebrated by heading to Flick's Tap, the watering hole made famous in Shepherd's written and broadcast accounts of growing up in fictional Hohman, Ind. -- a mighty thin disguise for Hammond.
Shepherd, whose radio programs from New York City were wildly popular in the 1950s and 1960s, wrote and narrated the consummate celluloid Christmas celebration, "A Christmas Story," in 1983.
In the book on which the film was based -- "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" -- Shepherd reminisces about his youth in Hohman on a return visit home during a give-and-take with childhood friend Flick, now the proprietor of Flick's Tap in the old neighborhood.
The two trade yarns, Flick in awe of life in New York, Shepherd's narrator charmingly condescending toward his old stomping grounds with its used car lots, bowling alleys and corner candy stores.
But while Hohman is semi-fictional, Flick's is not.
It existed when Shepherd grew up at 2907 Cleveland St. in Hammond's Hessville neighborhood, the son of Jean and Anne Shepherd, and it exists today, although at a different location (the original was on the northeast corner of 165th Street and Kennedy Avenue).
The "new" Flick's has been at 6205 Kennedy Ave. for more than a quarter of a century.
I'm guessing Jean Shepherd never visited it. I met him only once, in 1984 at a reading of his works at the Lake County Public Library in Munster, and even at that time he seemed more than a little condescending toward the Calumet Region whose stories -- told largely unabridged -- had brought him fame.
I think in retrospect he was somewhat angry with his home area for not giving him the respect he found on the East Coast and later on the West Coast, but that's a little surprising given his portrayal of the majority of locals as lunch bucket-toting wage slaves of the steel mills and oil refineries.
I mean, what did he want from these people? They respected hard work with hands and back, not sitting in front of a microphone on WOR radio from, of all places, New York City. It was a picture just a little too hoity-toity, thanks, for the region working man and Shepherd recognized this in "In God We Trust" where Flick endures stories of the Big Apple just long enough to be able to inject the latest news from Hohman's bowling alleys.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say Cheers and Flick's are America's two most famous taverns, at least from the 20th Century. Name me another.
Cheers was, of course, mass marketed and has its own cute gift shop both at its original Beacon Street location and at its namesake in the city's trendy Quincy Market area.
Flick's remains a cult favorite, more of a place where everyone really does know your name. It's out of the way for a visitor to Chicago, who will almost certainly need a Sherpa guide to find it, or at least MapQuest.
"It's a corner bar, a friendly bar," said bartender Janie Nagy, who has worked here for six or seven years. "I love it here. The owner (Martha Convery) is just like family to me. She's had the bar for 18, 19 years and never changed the name. I guess it's good for business, you know?"
The people in the bar today -- I missed 50-cent draft Tuesday by a day -- talk about the things that would have fit right in with Shepherd's reminisces.
It's about tires and gas mileage, getting a job after being laid off, region stuff. No one's worried about cloning dogs or Supreme Court nominees. The closest it gets to national issues is a discussion of Peter Jennings' death.
"He didn't have a college degree, you know," an older man remarks.
Janie says she didn't know much about Shepherd before starting her job, but has learned. "Yes, this is the place," she says when asked if this is the Flick's Tap of the Shepherd broadcasts and novels. "People ask me stuff I don't know," she confides. "But I've learned a lot since I've been here."
Unlike Cheers, which has a big gift store attached and is marketing-friendly, Flick's is what it is, and is what it was: A neighborhood bar. It's a cult destination, and Janie has become familiar with the crowd that stops in to visit.
"We don't get a lot, but we've had more in the past few weeks," she said, adding a large party recently stopped in to celebrate with a lengthy stay at Shepherd's legendary bar.
She could have worked at any one of more than a dozen bars that line this strip of Kennedy Avenue, but she works at Flick's. Does she like the extra attention?
"Of course," she said. "Who wouldn't?"
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