Hairy Gertz and the 47 Crappies

“Crappies are a special breed of Midwestern fish, created by God for the express purpose of surviving in waters that would kill a bubonic-plague bacillus. They have never been known to fight, or even faintly struggle. I guess when you’re a crappie, you figure it’s no use anyway.” Jean Shepherd, “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” The title character in Jean Shepherd’s “Hairy Gertz and the 47 Crappies,” about 12-year-old Ralph fishing on Cedar Lake with his dad and a half-dozen of the Old Man’s drinking and bowling buddies, is a notorious dirty joke teller, often involving men of the cloth, wanton women, and Eastern European bartenders. Out on the lake Gertz had plenty of time to spin one after another that were “rotten to the core,” with the Old Man vainly cautioning that there was a kid in the boat. One, for instance, about a Hungarian who had a cross-legged daughter and a bowlegged dachshund, Ralph couldn’t understand, but he knew it was pretty disgusting from his companions’ reaction. Vic (my Old Man) had a friend who seemingly an endless supply of jokes, most of them not fit for mixed company, as the saying went in my youth. Vic always feigned embarrassment when the guy launched into one in my presence. While I rarely hear raunchy jokes anymore, having retired from my bowling league, they appear to be, according to steel mill folklore, a staple of daily life at work and in Region taprooms. A few years ago, I was keynote speaker at a one-day conference in Cedar Lake and chose to discuss the various vicissitudes the community has undergone from its pioneer days, through the tourist boom of a century ago, followed by the Great Depression, the emigration of industrial workers from Kentucky and Tennessee during the war, and the resultant pollution of the lake from a variety of waste products, and the more recent gentrification following incorporation. I spoke about the many famous bands that performed at the Midway Ballroom and quoted from “Hairy Gertz and the 47 Crappies,” first published in Playboy, which Shepherd introduces with this exchange between Ralph and childhood friend Flick, now a bar owner, reminiscing about a girl who moved out to Cedar Lake: Ralph: “Cedar Lake! I haven’t heard of Cedar Lake for years! The Dance Hall! The roller rink! The Smell! Is it still out there, Flick? How is Cedar Lake?” Flick paused meaningfully in his swabbing, savoring to the full his next statement. “Cedar Lake. It’s the first time I heard of ‘em doing it to a lake. It’s Condemned!” Acknowledging Shepherd’s tendency toward hyperbole, I got laughs when I read this passage describing the water where 17,000 Region fishermen had gathered: “It is composed of roughly ten percent waste glop spewed out by Shell, Sinclair, Phillips, and the Grasseli Chemical Corporation; twelve percent used detergent; thirty-five percent thick gruel composed of decayed garter snakes, deceased toads, fermented crappies, and a strange, unidentifiable liquid that holds it all together. No one is quite sure what that is, because everybody is afraid to admit what it really is. They don’t want to look at it too closely. So this melange lays there under the sun, and about August it is slowly simmering like a rich mulligatawny stew. The natives, in their superstitious way, believe that it is highly inflammable. They take no chances.” About a decade ago, Greg Reising asked me to participate in a Miller Beach Aquatorium fundraiser: members would read selections by their favorite authors. Naturally, I chose “Hairy Gertz and the 47 Crappies.” It went over so well that I was asked to do an encore the following month, enabling me to finish the memorable story, where the men arrive home with their catch and celebrate their “primal victory over the Elements” by smoking cigars and drinking yet more Blatz beer, as Ralph cleans the 47 crappies. Here’s the final paragraph: “Somewhere off in the dark the Monon Louisville Limited wails as it snakes through the Gibson Hump on its way to the outside world. The giant Indiana moths, at least five pounds apiece, are banging against the window screens next to my bed. The cats are fighting in the backyard over crappie heads, and fish scales are itching in my hair as I joyfully, ecstatically slide off into the great world beyond.” When I first read “Hairy Gertz and the 47 Crappies,” I had no idea what the Gibson Hump was. It turned out to be a Region railroad yard, roundhouse, and coaling station where locomotives are serviced, repaired, and stored. While less than 200 roundhouses are still in use in the United States, the Gibson yard is still active. The Monon railroad once ran trains back and forth from Chicago to Indianapolis with a stop in Cedar Lake, enabling people from those cities to spend a day, weekend or longer at one of the town’s resort hotels or cottages.