Your Name Here
If you're not yet a Hall of Famer, maybe you're just not trying
- By Richard Conniff
- Smithsonian magazine, January 2009, Subscribe
"Some halls of fame are admittedly just a nice way for industries to give loyal timeservers a pat on the back." Illustration by Eric Palma
The other day I got a press release about the latest immortals inducted into the Thermal Spray Hall of Fame. "It's just outside Cleveland," a spokesman told me when I followed up by phone. It's not exactly a hall, he said, or even a room. More like a display panel. Then, mustering all his powers of understatement, he added, "If you think of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's not like that." Maybe he was afraid I was planning to visit.
Not to worry. I was just savoring the idea that the American landscape is littered with halls of fame that frequently lack the hall, and also, well, the fame. They honor achievement in fields where ticker-tape parades and groupies are not generally part of the deal structure. Dairy farming, for instance.
So the Agricultural Hall of Fame, in Bonner Springs, Kansas, does right by the likes of Carl Gustav Patrick DeLaval, inventor of the DeLaval high-speed centrifugal cream separator. And if you think this nation does not owe a profound debt of gratitude to Mr. DeLaval, ask yourself: If we couldn't separate the cream, how would we whip it? And if we couldn't whip it, where would strawberry shortcake be?
Some halls of fame are admittedly just a nice way for industries to give loyal timeservers a pat on the back. The California Pharmacy Hall of Fame, for instance, recently inducted one pill-trade titan for working "tirelessly to keep pharmacy in high regard with policymakers." Translation: He's a lobbyist. There's also an Insurance Hall of Fame, but they lost me with the sentence on their Web site beginning, "What binds these Laureates together is...." Could it be their genius at writing the artful non-renewal notice? I'll never know. My list of 1,000 things to do before I die also does not include a visit to the Alabama Road Builders Hall of Fame (though an exhibition on chain gangs might just change my mind).
I'm more interested in halls of fame where there is an element of hapless love in play. The American Yo-Yo Association Hall of Fame in Chico, California, for instance, celebrates heroes like Gus Somera, who "made himself a legend as a yo-yo demonstrator...." The National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum in Hayward, Wisconsin, includes a "Shrine to Anglers" in the form of a 143-foot-long, four-and-a-half-story-tall "hand-sculpted" likeness of a leaping muskellunge. That's a kind of fish, and there's an observation platform in its gaping mouth where 20 people at a time can stand behind the spiky teeth and imagine what it might be like for a fishing lure to come whizzing out of the sky and whisk them off into eternity.
The idea is clearly to attract tourists, and location matters. The New York-based National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum asks "Why Oneonta?" on its Web site. And the National Distance Running Hall of Fame asks "Why Utica?" Neither comes out and says: "Hey, aren't we at least worth a side trip from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown?"
All this suggests that, with a little marketing savvy, the possibilities for celebrating the unfamous are limitless. Why not, for instance, a High School Principals' Hall of Fame, celebrating achievement with the raised eyebrow and lowered expectations? Or how about a Fast Food Workers' Hall of Fame? (Did you know Eileen Edwards used to work at McDonald's before she got a makeover and became Shania Twain?) Think big. How about a Breathing In and Breathing Out Hall of Fame? The good news: Congratulations! You're one of our laureates.
The bad news: Your membership expires when you do.
Richard Conniff's selection to the Richard Conniff Hall of Fame is currently pending.
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Comments (1)
Richard, Organizations like the ASM Thermal Spray Society aspire to be mentioned in publications such as the Smithsonian. So it should come as no surprise that when we are and it is presented in the light that it was… it’s not quite what we had in mind. I can appreciate your humor however, so let me respond with this brief rejoinder. People contribute to their specific profession or industry in unique ways that are appreciated and recognized by their peers... We can joke and make fun of this if we choose to. Or we can appreciate the fact that people do want to acknowledge the contributions that others have made... regardless of how trivial it may seem from an outsiders’ perspective. The fact is that the thermal spray industry has created technical applications that have provided high performance solutions with increased cost efficiency for aerospace, power generation and other key industries. They may have even enabled the airlines to shave a few dollars from your plane ticket… I'm sure that recognition such as those that you referred to in your article don't mean much to some - I'm sure the Magazine Publishers of America don't have a Hall of Fame Award and if they did, you wouldn't want to participate in something like that. It would be like having a National Magazine Award listed on your credentials. (Who would want that? Certainly not you...) If you’re interested in the importance of thermal spray technology, visit us at the International Thermal Spray Conference (ITSC) in Las Vegas, May 4-7. We’ll raise a glass to the pursuit of technical innovation and achievement… and maybe you can meet one of our thermal spray rock stars. - Thom Executive Director, ASM Thermal Spray Society
Posted by Thom Passek on January 12,2009 | 05:13 PM