Who? Oh, the guy who invented rock & roll.

Before Elvis! Before practically everybody.

Responsible for THE major national artform of my lifetime and a worldwide industry that generates more cash than the GNP of most nations.

The main reason race, color, nationality or whatever silliness people were using to point out distinctions among us, never penetrated that culture.

The main reason radio flourished despite TV.

Oh, there were idiots on the fringe smashing records and being loud and McCarthylike before cameras, but nobody paid much attention, we were all busy having fun with Mr. Berry's tunes.

That Buddy Holly and Little Richard could practice their art on a socially level field is due to Mr. Berry.

I, like most, grew up in a world where, within my universe, all folks looked, spoke and acted amazingly alike.

A society deathly afraid that an African American family might, heaven forbid, move into the neighborhood. Yet, on the radio you could hear a sequence songs that might include the Everlys, Berry, Holly, Richard and Presley not one eyebrow raised.

Nobody cared what the Monotones or Del-Vikings looked like

Nobody steered us toward multicultural - it just was.

And Berry's workproduct was the Genesis.

Could be a stretch to suppose that a reason Dr. King believed we could all live together someday when insignificant vestiges of the aforementioned ignorance would finally be overcome, but the impact of R&R and the merging cultures of the Apollo Theater and Dick Clark could not have escapes his notice.

If there's ever a Mt. Rushmore for contributers to the national culture, his face had better be up there.

Says me, Bob P