Come back to the Market Diner, Jimmy Dean

/ January 13, 2015

So who’d you like to have breakfast with given a free hand?

Pancakes with Pavlov and ask him to bring his dogs?

Oatmeal with Oliver Stone so you can explain why everybody’s against you?

Eggs over easy with Ella Fitzgerald so you tell her how much you admired how she always made hitting the hard notes seem a snap?

This scenario came to mind Monday morning as a custom-painted mural stared at me during a two-hour meeting of the fine minds with a friend of mine.

A mix between the real and surreal in Syracuse, N.Y.

A mix between the real and surreal in Syracuse, N.Y.

I do believe an artist wishes everybody frequenting the Market Diner, think that they’re dreaming of breaking bread with actor Jimmy Dean at a booth with musician Buddy Holly over to the right while actress Marilyn Monroe eats a booth over to the left.

Unless that’s a young Penn State football coach Joe Paterno with James Dean?

Who are you, anyway?

Who are you, anyway?

I decided to ask. But my question went unanswered by these characters this January morning at the Regional Market in Syracuse, N.Y.

I think it’s a great mural.

Who do you see up on that wall? Who do you think is hanging out with their backs turned? I had a Denver Omelette. What would you order with Jimmy Dean?

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63 thoughts on “Come back to the Market Diner, Jimmy Dean”

  1. Let’s see: Jimmy Dean was famous for his sausages. I think a waffle would be a crackin’ good combo. Love that mural. If you’re talking about James Dean, that would have to be some kind of rebellious breakfast. Maybe scrambled eggs, refried beans and hot sauce. That oughta do it. 😉

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  2. Believe it or not, Mark, the most interesting person in that mural to me, right now, is you. I would order sweet potato pancakes with comedian Steven Wright, who responded to a sign in a diner that said “We serve breakfast any time,” by ordering eggs during the Renaissance.

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  5. Pingback: A Fun Get-A-Way | Two Trails One Road

    • Paterno was an interesting guy. When I was a young sports journalist I was covering a game that sent the Maryland football team to Penn State, and the routine was to invite the visiting writers to a fireside chat with Paterno the night before the game. This was in the early 1980s, and Penn State was a power, and their sports information director introduced 23-year-old me to the legend-in-the-making Paterno and the coach heard the accent in my voice and asked me if I came from Brooklyn, like he did. I told him I was born in Brooklyn, so he walked us to two comfy chairs next to the fireplace and talked to just me for five minutes. Cool move by him. Thanks for telling us about your great diner find, Nancy.

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      • What a neat story… and thank you for sharing it. People who work at Penn State loved him! I am a big college football fan so… I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at your fireside chat.
        I placed your diner blog post link on my diner post yesterday! 🙂 just thought you should know.

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  7. Frankly, I didn’t even recognize Jimmy Dean there. But then again, I didn’t know he was an actor and not exclusively a sausage guy until early last year. I think the waitress looks like Joyce DeWitt! LOL! And I LOVE the photo of you!

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  11. I like the idea of imagining eating with the famous! I love the fact you had yourself look like you fit right in here! (And you do deserve to be up there, since you would ask great questions and tell us all about your meal afterwards!) I love the mural and the diner, too. I would like to be eating with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It would be nice to know how they were able to be true to their art and talent of acting, without becoming too ‘uppity’ and I would order whatever they did. They decide to give back thtough their sauces and dressings, to continue paying forward into the next generation, too. I like Paul’s comment in an interview about faithfulness: “Why would I eat hamburger out, when I have ‘steak’ at home!” Joanne was his ‘steak.’ Smiles!

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  12. i think Marilyn was sitting with J Edgar, who was trying to borrow her subway dress. And I’m guessing Jimmy and Buddy were having a coke and a cig and… well, coke probably. Fun breakfast companions!

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    • J. Edgar was hiding his true motives like a true G Man, Barb. Good call there.

      And Jimmy and Buddy don’t look like they’re in the bad, bad boy stage quite that much right here. Fun, yes, Barb.

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  13. Sausage and poached eggs on toast wth Leonard Nimoy and Gene Roddenberry please. Love to hear Star Trek stories and William Shatner is too full of himself. Ha! That is such a fun mural Mark, and I must say that you look natural sitting there with the stars. There are afew towns upriver form Ottawa (Renfrew and Pembroke) wwhere they have done a focus on murals on the outsides of the buildings. It is amazing and really brightens up the town. Yours is the first major mural I’ve seen inside a business. It looks great Cool Post.

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    • Thanks for giving me my shot with the stars, Paul. I like your idea of chatting about the Stars with Gene and Lenny, too. And perking up a town with outdoor murals is AOK in my book. There are some of those around Syracuse, and they look great. Spread the art around, I say.

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  17. I thought it was Tom Hanks with hipster glasses. Certainly, Buddy wouldn’t have been so pensive. Maybe he regretted his choice of over medium instead of over hard. I wrestle with that decision daily. Perhaps Eddie Money in his white satin jacket said something abrasive, like, “I’m glad it was you who died instead of Waylon Jennings.”

    All I know is having Liza Minnelli wait on me would be a cabaret. If she brought me a few drinks, I might get out there on the checkered tile with her and do a little Sweeney Sisters “Trolley Song” as an homage to her mother.

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  18. Someone already beat me to the Jimmy Dean sausage reference!

    Eggs with Ella would be kind of cool.

    I am guessing the waitress is Alice? I would have preferred Flo, just so I could say “Kiss my grits!” in context. 😀

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  19. Oh, that’s so awesome. I was so busy looking at the mural I didn’t even notice that you could actually put yourself in it like that!! That would make for a great poem. I’ll see if I can do something with that if you don’t mind.

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  20. That is an awesome mural – I love it and love the picture of you with it in the background! I think I would enjoy a conversation with Marilyn Munroe, a conversation that went deeper than her public persona. From what I’ve read and seen, I suspect she was a very deep and intelligent woman. ❤
    Diana xo

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  24. What a fantastic diner…wish we had something like this here …i would like to do breakfast w kathryn hepburn, meryl streep, a senior budhist monk & abraham lincoln.

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  26. Why is George Harrison having breakfast with James Dean and Elvis Costello? (I know it’s Buddy Holly…ha ha) And is that Bogie with his back turned behind you, smoking a cigarette and buttering his toast with Marilyn?

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