HAMMOND -- Five years after his death, humorist Jean Shepherd still tickles some Hoosiers -- and raises hackles on others. For Amy Stocky, 35, Hammond's semi-famous son was a comic genius. Consider "A Christmas Story" the Yule chestnut about a boy who longs for a Red Ryder BB gun. The movie, based on the author's childhood in this blue-collar town, "immortalized this community," said Stocky, founder of the first Jean Shepherd Festival here Saturday. "People all over the world have seen 'Christmas Story.'" But for others, Shepherd's heart-warming yarns border on exploitation. The writer laced his material with references to real friends, places and landmarks. Jack "Flick" Flickinger was dismayed to be a recurring character, his widow said. She confirmed her husband and Shepherd were boyhood neighbors on Cleveland Street. But her spouse, who died in 1994, was not thrilled to be cast as a flagpole-licker in "Christmas Story." "It never happened," said Opal Flickinger, 80, of Lowell. Nor were Flick and the writer as tight as Shepherd implied in his tome "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash." The book is set in Flick's Tavern. Shepherd "was a friend, but I don't think they were buddy-buddy friends," Flickinger said. Baited his hometown Such coolness is understandable. The Calumet area was a frequent target of "Shep's" biting humor. The New York-based satirist derided his roots on the radio, in print and in person. "If Chicago is the city of broad shoulders," he decreed, "then Northwest Indiana is its broad rear end." His hometown, dubbed "Hohman" in his routines, lies where the state line ends in the detergent-filled waters of Lake Michigan, he once wrote. And it clings "to the underbody of Chicago like a barnacle clings to the rotting hulk of a tramp steamer." East Coast fans tuned in from the late-1950s through the 1970s to hear such verbal thrusts. Word filtered back. In the raconteur's defense, he was honest, said Mark Skertic, author of "A Native's Guide to Northwest Indiana." "His Hohman was a gritty mill town, and he talked about the smoke and the grime that comes from living near steel mills," the former Times writer said. Hammond residents "thought Shepherd was writing about them. But people from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Newark could read those same stories and believe he was describing their town," Skertic said. Some still do. "A lot of that culture still exists," said John Cain, executive director of the Northern Indiana Arts Association. Local boy Shepherd grew up on Cleveland Street, attended Warren G. Harding Elementary School, and graduated from Hammond High School in 1939. He toiled briefly in a steel mill, later attending Indiana University. He gained his first large audience in the U.S. Radio Corps during World War II. With a soulful voice and sarcastic humor, the young Hoosier dominated Cincinnati radio in the late 1940s. NBC bit, luring the upstart out East to test him as Steve Allen's replacement on "The Tonight Show." Jack Paar won the role, but Shep snagged an overnight shift at WOR-AM in New York. The studio would be his kingdom for more than 25 years. He remains a legend in broadcast circles for pioneering talk radio and cultivating legions of fans nicknamed "The Night People." Though a cult hit, the chatty virtuoso never became a mainstream hit, biographer Eugene Bergmann said. That's the tragedy of Shepherd's career. His broadcasts "were perishable," said Bergmann, author of the pending book, "Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd." "That's why he wanted to get into other lines of work." His personal life was flawed, too, lacking the warmth that pervades "Christmas Story." Shep abandoned first wife, Joan Warner, and their two small children in 1957. Then he denied his son's and daughter's existence for years. Randall and Adrian Shepherd still find it painful to discuss their father. Shep subsequently married and divorced actress Lois Nettleton. His final marriage to frequent collaborator Leigh Brown lasted until her death in 1998. Shepherd died a year later at age 78. His last visits to Hammond were typically contradictory. The author was delighted to collect an honorary doctorate from Indiana University Northwest in 1995. A year later, asked to speak to a group of writers at Purdue University Calumet, he sniffed he was surprised to see so many people in the audience. Locals enjoy a good clash of opinions, remarked Richard Lytle, a librarian at Hammond Public Library. Maybe when Shep needled the region, he was mocking himself, too. "We all have to laugh at ourselves," he said.