Shepherd is a nationally known humorist who has used his experiences in the Calumet Region as the basis for much of his material.

Shepherd, a native of Hammond, wrote a book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," that is based in Hohman, (Hammond) Ind.

The radio and film personality gave the audience of 350 a sampling of his talent with a two-and-a-half-hour humorous monologue.

The audience was very receptive to Shepherd's stories and his punchy tales of the Region: "The only place in America that takes White Castle seriously."

Shepherd said this was the first time he had performed in front of an audience from the Region.

"You can really appreciate attending Warren G. Harding Elementary School and having a Teapot Dome as your school symbol." Shepherd said.

"And understandingly why I laugh when they told me they were cleaning up the Calumet River and that there would be trout in there some day," he said.

"The only trout that will be in the Calumet will have to be polyethylene, transistorized, programmed to swim and acid resistant," Shepherd said.

Shepherd's new comedy film "A Christmas Story" opened last week at theatres across the country, featuring make-believe stories of his early childhood when he attended Warren G. Harding Elementary.

Shepherd is a Hammond-born humorist who has been cracking up readers for almost 20 years with his made-up tales about growing up poor in Hammond in the 1940's

Shepherd based his movie script on his Hammond storeis published in his 1967 book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash."

He once said, "The trouble is that people who live in Hammond don't really see how funny it is."

Repeatedly, "A Christmas Story" says it is set in Hammond: Hobbled by a flat tire, the Oldsmobile lurches to the side of the road and stops just in front of the unseen movie camera.

The front license plate reads "Indiana."

Dad always envisioned himself in the pits at the Indianapolis 500, the narrator on the soundtrack recalls.

At the kitchen table in the house on Cleveland Street, Dad reads the newspaper story about a man in Griffith who swallowed a yo-yo. Later, Dad wonders if his contest prize will be a bowling alley like the man in Terre Haute won.

It's no surprise that Indiana references abound in the film. But it was filmed in Cleveland.

"We needed a mill town that had a real downtown section, and nothing like that exists anymore in Hammond," Shepherd explained over the phone from his Maine cottage, where he was spending a Thanksgiving holiday.

"That's a difficult combination to find - mills and a downtown. We looked at 20 cities to find something resembling an Indiana town in the 1940's before we selected Cleveland." But Cleveland is just a backdrop.

"We shot there because it looked right. It still has a lot of 1940's-style buildings instead of the aluminum and glass we have today. We couldn't very well shoot the movie in a Hammond shopping center."

The Hammond High graduate supplies the voice-over to the film (and plays the man who stops a little boy from cutting into a line to see a department store Santa), but the words belong to a performer, not to him.

"The voice-over belongs to a grownup man looking back on his life. It's a guy, but it's not Jean Shepherd," he said. "The man is a character that I'm playing. I'm like a Greek chorus."