The Diner Wall of Fame

I often make references to certain people as being on The Diner Wall of Fame.

I'm not making this up: Someone stopped me yesterday and asked me if I remember everyone who was on the wall...which amused me on two fronts. First, that someone was paying attention that closely. Second, that some of you people out there take this Diner thing pretty seriously.

And they also asked about what it takes to be included on that wall. The criteria is actually very simple in that it is whoever had a truly profound influence on my thinking and/or inspires me for whatever various and sundry reasons. Oh yeah, and it's a tribute wall, so they must be deceased. I alone am the Panel of Judge.

But I was thinking about who I've mentioned as being on that wall...and I'm not going back through years of entries to make it definitive, but here's the list from memory:

First, the upper left-hand corner: A photo taken on a cruise of Charlotte the Scar and Eddie the Steelworker. It was taken on a Carribean cruise my parents took not long after my grandfather died and my grandmother footed the bill. I'm no expert on this because I was about 9 at the time, but if you're asking me that's when my parents were as happy as they'd ever been. That photo shows them sitting at some table on the ship holding hands and smiling. If you're asking me, I think they both were gone too soon from my life.

Next, Martin Luther King, Jr. I use the word "hero" sparingly, but MLK is one of mine. When I was a kid growing up in Alabama so much of the history there involves the civil rights and the civil war (taught as "The War of Northern Aggression, by the way)...as Alabama got a front-row seat for both. So I heard a lot of MLK speeches growing up and I can hear them now on documentaries or newscasts and still get chills. He had the moral high-ground and knew it and convicted us all...because he was freakin' right. His photo is one removed from those grainy movies that recorded his last few speeches, right after he said, "Now, I've seen the Promised Land. I might not get there with you."

Next, that painting of the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Indendence. I'm fascinated by their work and their understanding that words and ideas can change the world...and I soak up any biographies I can on them. They were freakin' right, too. Endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The brilliance of that document is the reason I wake up every July 4 and read it.

Next, Theodore Suess Geisl. Who else could teach little kids the importance of being an individual and the evils of big business and the horror of war? Manalive, this guy is more or less all of America's first teacher that isn't related to you. His photo reminds me of the kind of teacher I want to be...and it's him next to a blown-up photo of the first drawing from his "Mulberry Street" story--his first published...which I think would have significant meaning to him.

Next, Jim Henson. Muppets...everyone from the Count (who loves to count, aha ha) to Grover to Animal to the Swedish Chef and of course, Big Bird, Kermit, Miss Piggy, et al. Yes, they got their start of Sesame Street but they also fired it up on movies, too. Everybody has a favorite muppet...and his photo is one of him surrounded by all of them, kinda like when E.T. was in the closet hiding among the stuffed animals, so it'd be hard to pick Jim out.

Next, Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc. The mornings I woke up to Looney Toons...god bless the advent of cable television and they had hours to fill up and cartoons went from being a Saturday morning thing to an every stinkin' morning thing. I still watch them and laugh out loud at the timeless, classic stuff that Chuck's team drew and Mel's voices brought to life. If I were in prison, I'd use the in-house black market to procure the DVD box-set of these bad boys and I could endure months of solitary confinement (I like to think I'd be the kind of B.A. prisoner that would wind up with months of solitary confinement). The photo would be of all the characters in front with the two of them peering over them in the background.

Then, come the authors: Edgar Allen Poe...it's one of those paintings that there only seems to be one of and every literature book uses that same stock photo. I couldn't believe how they let us study this stuff in school because it seemed so dark and when you're 12 and reading this stuff it's all so creepy. And I couldn't get enough of it...in fact, it's when I first started to realize I liked reading and writing but couldn't tell anyone because it wasn't, well, hip and with-it.

Recent inductee Kurt Vonnegut. I'd love the photo of him to be from Dresden, with the other guys he hung out with in that slaughterhouse to survive the bombings with the caption to read: "And so it goes..." Just once in my life I'd like to write phrases like he did routinely.

Newly inducted comic strip creator Johnny Hart. B.C. and the Wizard of Id are still must-reads in my daily routine of the daily miracle that is a newspaper. His photo would be one of him with the Fat Broad.

Music inductees include Joe Strummer (the Clash), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) and Joey & Dee Dee Ramone (the Ramones). All would be concert shots because they were all more influential being "live" than on their studio records or interviews.

And, yes, there will be some automatic inductees upon their various demises, like John Hughes, Stephen King, Bo Jackson and Willie Mays and Frank Robinson, the writers of Arrested Development, Jim Carrey, and a host of seminary teachers and spiritual mentors...

But as it stands, that's the Wall of Fame because of their various influences on me that fit the criteria mentioned above.

So, who is on your Wall of Fame?