TheJeanShepherdProject.com
Title
Jean Shepherd Project Home
Contact
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Description
Jeff Beauchamp, founding member and current spokesperson for the JSP, was introduced to the storytelling genius of Jean Shepherd one late night in the mid 1960’s while in the family car, as the family was returning home to
. Over the objections of Jeff’s Mom who thought Shep used “bad language” and was unsuitable for children, Jeff’s Old Man, who was a long-time “Fathead” (Shep fan), tuned the car radio to WOR anyway. The next 45 minutes changed Jeff’s life forever. When a newer more reliable radio was purchased for the shelf over the kitchen sink, Jeff was given the old General Electric table model radio (with scotch tape holding the plastic casing together and a bad hum that was built in at the factory). At first he tried to secretly listen to Shep by turning out the lights in his bedroom and by putting the radio close to his bed, keeping the radio’s volume down low so that his parents wouldn’t find out that he was staying up way past lights out. Unfortunately the plan didn’t work for very long and his Mom threatened severe punishment if he was caught again. Facing a choice between going without Shep and punishment for parental disobedience, he came up with Plan B: a small loudspeaker was scavenged from a friend’s broken walkie-talkie and wire leads were soldered onto it. By pulling the wires off the radio’s internal speaker and connecting them to the leads of the tiny speaker, Shep could be heard by hiding the new speaker under the pillow without fear of recrimination. Plan B was successful for quite some time until one day when Jeff got up late for school and in his haste to get to school on time (another near-capital offensive) forgot to disconnect and hide his clandestine listening device. Severe parental retribution ensued and the trusty GE radio was never seen again, opening the door for Plan C. Through nefarious means a small transistor radio was acquired, and his only worries became maintaining a supply of 9-volt batteries and laughing too loud at Shep’s stories.
By high school age (1969) parental interference was no longer a factor, and Jeff turned his attention to his next goal: capturing Shep’s performances off the airwaves and preserving them for the future. Coming from a lower-middle class background there was no money for the purchase of a tape recorder, so Jeff determined that he was going to have to build one. Many attempts failed, and no working model was ready when Shep did his annual “Ludlow Kissel” reading from his book “In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash” on
