The late Hoosier author Jean Shepherd (of "A Christmas Story" fame) wrote engagingly about Johnson Smith & Company in a story titled "The Rosetta Stone of American Culture" in his book "The Ferrari in the Bedroom."
Just imagine that rich radio voice confiding, in part, "Johnson Smith & Co. is and was as totally American as apple pie, far more so in fact, since they do make apple pie in most places in the civilized world. Only America could have produced Johnson Smith. There is nothing else in the world like it. Johnson Smith is to Man's darker side what Sears Roebuck represents to the clean-limbed soil-tilling righteous side, a rich compost heap of exploding cigars, celluloid teeth, Anarchist (Stink) Bombs [#6256 "More fun than a Limburger cheese"]."
This book, together with "In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash" from which the stories that comprise "A Christmas Story" were taken, are well worth seeking out, reading, and enjoying. The man was, indeed, a rare talent, the likes of which we will never again see.