Draba

Today, I am posting two photographs of a draba tuft growing near my house.  Draba are often found in conjunction with phlox.  Both of these early bloomers are found in open—often rocky—sites.  They are not opposed poor soil or lack of consistent rain.

Singular tufts of draba are easy to miss if you are in hurry.  You may whisk past these tiny collections of flowers if focused only on where you are going.  The flowers are only about ¼ inch in size when fully opened.  They also grow inconspicuously; the entire plant rising little more than an inch or two above the ground.

I am sharing a close-up of the draba and a shot of the tuft from a few inches away.

--Mitchell Hegman

What’s the Third Thing?

Each morning, my friend and neighbor, Kevin, drives two miles out and two miles back to retrieve our newspapers.  On his way home, he stops at my house with my paper.  We normally engage in a small conversation when I run outside to get the paper.  Kevin arrived in my driveway at about 5:40 this morning.  I trotted out to grab my newspaper from him.

“How is it going?” I asked as I grabbed my paper through the open window of his SUV.

He grimaced a little and made fists with his hands, indicating that his arthritis was bothering him.  “I picked some rocks in the rain yesterday,” he said.  “I am paying for it.”

I nodded.  “Yup.  Gonna be one of those days,” I said.  “My boiler gave out the day before yesterday.  I am looking at about two-thousand bucks there.  Last night my hot tub crashed.  The ground-fault breaker won’t reset.”

“Uh-oh.  What’s the third thing?” Kevin asked.

I laughed.  Colleen and I had the same discussion last night.  Failures always come in groups of three.  “Well,” I told Kevin, “I have a spare coffee maker, if that’s next.”

“In that case, I hope your coffee maker is next.”

“Same here.”

Posted today, is a photo of my spare coffee maker.  As you can see, the coffee maker is brand new.  I have not even opened the box.  When it comes to coffee, I take no chances.

--Mitchell Hegman

32 Raindrops

32 raindrops smacked my truck’s windshield yesterday as I drove home from Helena.  Okay, I will admit that I did not actually count the drops one by one.  But I think 32 is a pretty good estimate.

I am not sure if 32 raindrops qualifies me to say that I drove through a rainstorm.  Just the same, 32 raindrops resides in something of a sweet spot for annoyance.  That is not a number you can ignore.

32 is a trigger. 

After the 32^nd drop hit the windshield, I flicked on my windshield wipers—anticipating full-fledged rain to follow.  As my wiper blades swept across the glass, the 32 raindrops merged with the assortment of bugs mashed on my windshield and created two giant Picasso-like smears across my view.  The cleansing rain I anticipated to follow never came.

The smears remained.

Now, ask me if I had windshield wiper fluid in my truck’s reservoir to squirt the mess away.

Actually…don’t ask.

--Mitchell Hegman

Given a Choice

Given a choice, I would like to be remembered in a string of funny outtakes from planet Earth proving—once and for all—that humans are ridiculous.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Man with Sticks

While driving through town the other day I saw two well-dressed men walking down a street near downtown.  One of the men had a briefcase swinging at his side.  The other man was carrying bundle of sticks on his shoulder.  The sticks were four or five feet long, still covered with bark, and mostly crooked as hell.

They were junky sticks.

I’m not sure what the man with sticks was buying or selling, but I was impressed.  I like a business guy who packs around a bunch of worthless sticks.

--Mitchell Hegman

Separated by Elevation

Twigs and blades of grass exist atop the Continental Divide, little more than a dozen miles from my house as the crow flies, that might split a raindrop in two and send the two halves to oceans separated by thousands of miles of land.  One half will flow down the west slopes of the mountains and fall into rivers flowing westward to the Pacific Ocean, some 600 miles distant.  The other half of the raindrop will flow down the east slopes and find a way to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, some 3,700 miles to the southwest by way of river routes.  The lofty and unbroken elevations of the Rocky Mountains (reaching from Mexico all the way through the United States to Canada) separate the direction of flow for the watersheds on each side of the range.

There also exists, in Montana’s Glacier National Park, a mountain named Triple Divide Peak (8,020 ft.) which sheds water into three distinct continental drainages.  The water shed from the peak can potentially flow to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Missouri; north to The Hudson Bay, by way of the Saskatchewan River Basin; or to the Pacific by way of the Columbia.

Elevation also plays a more linear role in separation.   The simple act of driving near a mountain range here in Montana today will reveal the distinct, and currently receding, snow lines on the higher peaks.  Spring ends at the snow line.  As spring turns to summer, the wide valleys tend to dry and the green gradually recedes to higher (cooler and wetter) elevations.  According to the USDA, Montana supports seven plant hardiness zones—largely based on elevation and weather alterations created by the presence of mountains. 

Some lines of elevation are firm.  The tree line here in Montana, for example, is somewhere just above 8,000 feet.  The climate is simply too harsh above this elevation to support trees.  The higher elevations tend to be either jumbles of stone and snow or alpine tundra.  Taking elevation in the other direction, mountain huckleberries do not naturally grow in elevations below 2,000 feet. 

The death zone begins at 26,000 feet.  Life cannot be supported above this elevation.  Essentially, climbers challenging Everest begin dying once they ascend above this elevation.  The trick is to reach the top, take a look around, and scramble back down to an elevation below 26,000 feet before death catches them.  The air is far too thin and cold in the death zone.  Additionally, the UV radiation found in sunlight (no longer naturally filtered by the atmosphere) will blind climbers without protective eyewear.  Similar to Icarus in Greek Mythology, we cannot climb too near the sun without suffering the consequence of death.

Elevation cannot be denied.  Standing at my bay window today, I can look across the valley and see the snow on the upper quarter of the Elkhorn Range.  Below, I see the jade-color of spring’s pine forests.  The forests eventually spill down onto grassy scarps and end there.  The scarps then flow down onto the prairie on which I live—happy to challenge the huckleberry line and the tree line now and then.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: New World Encyclopedia, National Parks Service, Wikipedia, USDA, U.S. Forest Service, University of Idaho  

Two Men at a Fire

Two men sat at an open fire deep in the woods late in the night.   One by one, the men extended sticks into the fire, allowing the fire to sheath the sticks in yellow and red flames.  Once the fire firmly gripped the sticks, the men let them go and watched the sticks flourish with new flames.

One man was older than the other.  Considerably so.  The older man watched as several sticks in the fire collapsed, issuing sparks that spiraled up through the flames and ascended into the starry sky.

“What do you see when you watch the fire?” the older man asked the younger.

“I see flames struggling along the length of the sticks,” the younger man said.  “Men are fighting.  Soldiers rising, clashing, and falling.  But atop that—in the upper flames—there is a beautiful woman dancing with her child.”  The younger man poked at the fire with a stick, releasing an ascending column of sparks.  “What do you see?” he asked the older man.

The old man thought for only a moment.  “I see a bouquet of flowers.  The flowers open and close quickly.  All of the flowers are eventually drawn back into the coals and the earth.  Some go to seed as they fall.  The seeds will become stars.  You can see the seeds climbing up into the sky as you stir the fire.”  The older man kicked at the fire.  Sparks swirled up into the dark night.

“Interesting, that we do not see the same thing,” the younger man remarked.

The older man grinned.  “Are we not actually seeing and saying the same thing?”

--Mitchell Hegman

Remakes of Famous Aphorisms

—When one door closes another door allows in a draft.

—Necessity is the mother of single malt Scotch.

—That which does not kill us tastes awful.

—Today, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cocaine.

—The race is now always to the swift, but chances are vastly improved.

--Mitchell Hegman

When Doves Cry

I only know what I like.  I don’t play a musical instrument.  I don’t know the details that underlie finished sounds on popular songs.  But the first time I heard When Doves Cry, I was astounded by the stripped-down sound of it.

Something different and stark, but penetrating.  Almost a chant.  I was immediately drawn in.

I was to learn later that the song had been recorded without base.

So simple.

Click on the following link if the posted video does not launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYVOrzv61Yg

--Mitchell Hegman

At the End of the Rope

I was at one of my lowest points when I chanced to meet Doc Hanson at our mailboxes. He drove up and got out of his truck as I pulled a few envelopes from my box.  Generally, that was the only place where our lives regularly came together.  We lived far-flung in the country.  Our mailboxes sat atop a long wooden rail mounted between two wooden posts where a rural road split in two directions.  My house was nearly two miles from the boxes on one fork.  Doc Hanson’s place was at nearly the same distance on another fork.

“How are you?” Doc Hanson asked me.

“Honestly,” I said, “I have been better.”  I appraised his face.  A kind face, if there is such.  “Could I ask for some advice, Doc?”

“Sure.”

I told Doc Hanson my story.  I told him how my wife was in Salt Lake City and had been there for several weeks—mostly paralyzed—maybe facing a future where she would never walk again.  Doctors there were divided into two camps so far as her diagnosis.  Some said transverse myelitis some said multiple sclerosis.  I told Doc Hanson that I was confused and afraid.  I was upset that I had to come back home to Montana.  Among other things, I wanted to know how to deal with the doctors.   

“Specialists, like those working with your wife, tend to look for their disease.  That might explain why they have a split diagnosis.  The important thing is that she is getting the care she needs.”

We spoke for several minutes.  I probably took up more of his day than I should have.  Before we parted, Doc Hanson said the one thing that has bolstered me time and again in the twenty years since that day.  “When you feel you have reached the end of your rope,” he advised, “tie a knot in the end and hang on.  Just hang on.”

Doc Harris Hanson passed a couple weeks ago.  I am guessing that he hung on for as long as he could.  His passing leaves a hole.

--Mitchell Hegman

Amber Alert

Last night, at 1:52 AM, an AMBER alert on that girl’s cellphone jerked me awake from a deep sleep.  I woke to the sound of a “tornado” alarm.

A little girl has gone missing in Poplar, Montana.  

AMBER alerts are named for a little girl named Amber Hagerman.  She was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996.  A quick response is (and has always been) key to catching the beasts that abduct children.  Following the death of Amber Hagerman, the AMBER alert system was developed to quickly notify law enforcement agencies and the public when a child has been abducted.  The system also requires the cooperation to communication companies and agencies.

Today, Amber alerts hit thousands of points—including cellphones—the instant they are sent.  Details about the child and the abduction are shared.  Since the adoption of the AMBER alert system, hundreds of children have been quickly recovered.

I cannot think of a better reason to be jarred awake late at night.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Girl with Sparkling Skin

While in high school, I dated a girl whose skin sparkled.  In sunlight, her face and arms glittered like found treasure.  And she was pretty.  Prettier than you might expect for the likes of me.

I thought I was quite lucky.  Me: the guy with a pretty girl whose skin sparkled.

Naturally, the girl with sparkling skin left me for another boy.  She broke my heart.  Only after our breakup did I come to realize that her sparkling skin was a cheap illusion caused by something in her body lotion.

--Mitchell Hegman

Crawlspace

I am soft pink and primordial at the end of my cord,

slithering along within the belly of a beast bigger.

My trouble light screams against the blackness,

but my tongue dies in my mouth.

Flies assail the naked bulb,

tick-tick at it, frantic to merge with the bright,

then reel away blind and splinter against raw earth below,

or click against the oaken ribs above.

All things dissolve outside my reach.

I am the itch.

I am the disease.

I am the weak thing that refuses to leave.

Light is the illusion which provides color.

Yellow is black without sun.

Here, in permanent darkness,

in swirling dust,

my progress is sealed within the cracks.

Nothing grows.

East is not east.

West is a smear of red sky in a bad Western movie.

The moon, when we find it here,

is square as a packing box.

We need not look for the pale shoulder of morning.

--Mitchell Hegman

Note:  I posted a version of this poem almost six years ago when I first launched my blog.  I am reposting today after a few alterations.  I originally drafted the poem in the 1980s after spending a day working in the crawlspace of a Victorian mansion in Helena.  Poems are never finished.

Inflatable Animals Engage in Weird Sex Act as Snowboarder Drowns

My blog title might be a bit misleading.  Okay...the title is totally bogus.  One of the photographs I am posing today seems to suggest what the title expresses, but the image is really a trick produced by my photographic point of view.

I can explain everything.

The photographs posted are from my trip to Yellowstone Club last week.  As part of the “Employee Appreciation Day,” snowboarders and skiers are invited to join in a pond skimming competition.  The idea, obviously, is to slide down the hill, successfully launch from a jump, and skim across a freshly filled pond.  The inflatable animals float around the pond as part of the ridiculous pageant.

Not many people make it.  Across the pond, I mean.  Nobody was seriously harmed during the event.

The entire affair is pretty big fun.

--Mitchell Hegman

Don’t Worry About Sharks during a Ground Blizzard

I am not normally inclined to dispense uninvited advice or wisdom, but I think the following tidbits warrant unsolicited mention:

1. Stuff falls down a lot easier than it falls up.

2. Don’t worry about sharks during a ground blizzard.

3. Check in early to all things except the end.

4. Don’t think of Montana as a state; think of Montana as a state of mind.

5. If something is too good to be true, half the people you know will want it.

6. A false memory is every bit as real as any other.

7. A half-pair of scissors will work no better on a half-sheet of paper than on a full sheet.

8. Sometimes…just don’t.

--Mitchell Hegman

Not an Insult, Just a Fact

My dead cells know more about me than you will ever know.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sixty Years Old for One Day

I have been sixty years old for one day.  It does not totally suck.

--Mitchell Hegman

Waking in the Predawn

At this hour, amid the sounds of early spring rain, I hear Elvis faintly singing from the pine trees below my house.  I am hoping my first cup of coffee will cure that.

--Mitchell Hegman

A View from the Top

The upper chairlift at Yellowstone Club drops you off at 9,860 feet—close enough to the clouds that your first urge is to duck as the clouds spill past you.  Your second urge is to spin around and take in the impossible beauty of the seemingly endless expanse of mountains.  To one side, Sphinx Mountain surges 10,876 feet into the sky.  On another side, all 11,116 feet of Lone Peak rises to crown Big Sky Ski Resort.       

Yellowstone Club is a private resort.  On all days of the year, save one, only club members are allowed to access the ski lifts.  On one special day, employee appreciation day, club employees are allowed to bring a single guest to the club with them.  The employees are allowed to ski the slopes with their guests.  Club members volunteer to serve a free lunch and help manage other tasks.

That girl and I were fortunate enough to spend yesterday at Yellowstone Club.  We were the guests of my friend Mark and one of his coworkers.  That girl does not ski, so we all rode the lifts in our streetwear and walked on and off the chairs.  We rode two chairs to reach the top.

Today, I am posting photographs from our day “the club.”  That girl and Mark are featured in the last photograph.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Spa for Honeybees

You know how you don’t appreciate the smell of garlic on the breath of someone you are talking with?  Seems honeybees are the same way.  Garlic is a complete turnoff.  You can use various forms of garlic—powders or homemade sprays—as a harmless repellent.

I learned this as a result of an unusual problem.  Yesterday, a mini-swarm of honeybees decided to collect in a small space under my hot tub cover.  When I reached under the cover to cycle the jets before half-opening cover, several honeybees tumbled out and began to electron around my face, alerting me to their presence.  With the help of that girl, I flopped open the cover and found a half-dozen more bees.

I am guessing that the little cubby there is a pretty comfy spa for the bees.    

The bees continued to zing around a perform touch-and-goes on the edge of the hot tub after we removed the cover.  “That’s not good,” I told that girl.  “I don’t think they want to leave.  I think I will Google natural repellents and see if we can push them to another place.”

Garlic and cinnamon appeared on several of the first few sites my search netted.  Seems the smell of garlic is disgusting to bees.  Various methods of garlic application were suggested.  I opted for my own version.  I wiped the hot tub surfaces bees found interesting with a paper towel soaked in the juice from a jar of crushed garlic we had in the refrigerator.

One by one, the bees performed another series of touch-and-goes.  Gradually, though, they decreased in number.  Within an hour or so, the bees were gone.

Garlic: not just a vampire repellent. 

--Mitchell Hegman

A Painted Turtle

Painted turtles are found in lakes and ponds throughout Montana.  A couple days ago, I found one sunning on a rock near my dock on the lake.  Painted turtles are not particularly common in Hauser Lake.  I was surprised to see it.

Painted turtles are omnivores.  They eat plants and most any living thing they can catch.  Turtles lucky enough to catch a lot of insects, fish, or other living matter grow much faster than those surviving on a diet of plants. The one I saw will likely not start eating again until the warmer days of early summer.

Painted turtles live slow and deliberate lives.  They never cause a ruckus.  They are not in a hurry.

Painted turtles engage in springtime courtships.  The females then lay eggs in nests buried along the water’s edge (sometimes at a distance from the water).  The heat of the sun incubates the eggs for two or three months.  Interestingly, the sex of the turtles in the nest is determined by the surrounding soil temperatures.  Warmer temperatures produce females.  Males emerge from cooler nests.  Even this stage of life progresses at a slow pace.  After hatching in their nest, most hatchlings may remain in the nest until the following spring.

I am more than happy to welcome a quiet painted turtle as my neighbor.  Easier to tolerate than the boom-box wake boats that have appeared on the lake in recent years.

Posted today is a photograph of the turtle I saw.  I leaned out and snapped a photograph of the turtle with my smarter-than-me phone.  As you can see, the turtle was basted in mud, having only recently emerged from overwintering at the muddy lake bottom.

--Mitchell Hegman

Source: John Ashley, Wild and Free In Montana

Reptile

Here is a song from The Church, an Australian rock band.  I have always been taken by the crying guitar and the dark vocals.  At this point, the song is nearly 30 years old.  When released as a single, this song never even cracked the top ten in the U.S.  Just the same, I consider it perfectly wrought.  Reptile is one of those songs that makes me stop and listen each and every time I hear it.

If the video posted here fails to launch, please click on the following link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCPC_5j1Few 

--Mitchell Hegman

The Cat, the Mouse, and the Sticky Spider Trap

I woke yesterday morning to a mouse in my home.  I knew I had a mouse because my cats were in hunting mode.  The two cats were hunched at the end of my sofa, waiting for the mouse to make a move. The mouse, as luck would have it, ended up hiding under a heat register directly behind where I sit each morning watching Donald Trump’s giant orange face on the news.

I retrieved a flashlight and stretched out on the floor so I could see under the sofa.  Peering under the sofa, I saw the mouse hiding there behind it.  Not wanting to move furniture to get the mouse, I grabbed a broom.  I thought I would try to chase the mouse out toward my 40 pound of cats.

Carmel vanished once he saw me with the broom.

Just me and Splash now.

The instant I extended the broom under the sofa, the mouse started heading out toward Splash.  Then, just before I pushed the mouse out into full light, Splash jumped up and ran off to the dining room.  “Where are you going?” I yelped.  “I thought we were working this together!”

Naturally, the mouse popped out from under the sofa and started ping-ponging between the wall, a rocking chair, a floor speaker, and one of those sticky spider traps you place against the wall.  The trap was easily big enough for the mouse to enter (see photo).  After a brief skirmish, I finally managed to slap the mouse against the floor with the broom.

Splash watched me with total disinterest as I picked the mouse up by the nape of its neck and carried it outside for live release.  “Thanks for your help,” I told Splash.

Several hours later, as I watched Splash walk into the kitchen, I detected something odd about his gait.  When I walked over to investigate, I found that Splash had managed to get caught-up in the spider trip.  It was attached to his flank.

I bent down and worked to free Splash (and a considerable mass of hair) from the trap.

“Pathetic,” I said to him.  “Simply pathetic.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Four Weird Facts from Mitch-World

—The missing cap for a hi-liter will be found one hour after the hi-lighter dries out.

—Washing windows merely changed the direction of the streaks.

—Two rights puts you in the ditch.

—It is not possible to stack one cat atop another when organizing.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Conversation with 20 Pounds of Housecat

I have some weird conversations with my 40 pounds of housecat when I am alone with them.  Not really conversations.  Obviously, they are only listeners, and not particularly good at that.  My conversations mostly involve me carefully explaining things to them as they ignore me.  Yesterday, for example, I had a conversation with Splash, 20 pounds of housecat.  He seemed a bit miffed when I let him inside following a rather sudden volley of rain.

“Listen,” I said in an even voice, “I know that you don’t like rain.  I get that.  But we need rain.  Rain makes stuff grow.  Plant stuff, I mean.  Now, I understand that you are not keen on plants, but mice like plants—they especially enjoy the seeds produced by plants.  So we need rain for plants so you can have mice to chase around.”

I paused to allow my points to settle in.  “You like to chase the shit out of mice, right?”  

Splash offered a blank expression, turned, and walked away.  I slowly ambled after him, continuing my oration.  “Fish and birds are also fond of water.  Just part of this whole life deal we have going on.  And here is another important thing: rainwater is eventually a key ingredient in single malt Scotch.  Therefore, I think we can safely say we all—me, you, and mice—have skin in the game, in a manner of speaking.  Rain is good...so…you just run along and think about that.”

Splash stopped and pivoted his head to give me one of those see-through-you cat stares.  I know what he was thinking.  He was thinking that he will listen to me when food rains down directly from the sky.  That’s when rain will matter.

--Mitchell Hegman

NOTE:  I really did have this conversation with Splash and he really did ignore me.

When Lurking was Cool

I am not certain why, but it occurred to me yesterday afternoon that I have not effectively used the word “lurking” since 1969.  If you are the type who enjoys math, that was 47 years ago.

Really, lurking is one of those dusty old words that works in very few applications during the course of a normal lifetime.  And lurking has something of a corrupt implication.  Lurking is what bad animals do.

Back in 1969, while sitting in a seventh-grade English class, I got an idea.  I ripped a sheet of paper from my notebook and a made a sign.

TEACHERS LURKING, the sign read.

After making the sign, I poked my buddy, Mark.  He sat next to me.  “I have a cool idea,” I told him.

Back then I used the word “cool” a lot.  I also liked wearing paisley print shirts, which makes for some regrettable photographs in my old photo albums.  “I think,” I told my buddy, “that we should hang this at the door to the teacher’s breakroom.”

“That is cool!” Mark agreed. “Teachers lurking!”

Mark did not often think my ideas were cool.

“Cool,” I said.

At the first opportunity, Mark grabbed my sign and posted it by the teacher’s breakroom door.

It was cool.  Some of the teacher’s liked the sign.  They thought Mark was pretty clever.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Little Oscar Wilde

I could spend all day reading the quotes of Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and Oscar Wilde.  Thomas Jefferson stands out for his concise distillations of the human condition.  Mark Twain and Will Rogers found a way to blend quick humor and accuracy into their observations.  Oscar Wilde managed a fine balance between humor and pithy observations.

I enjoy a quote that makes me stop and populate my own lengthy thoughts around it before I can move on.  I like a quote that clings to me for a little while after I read it.  Following is an Oscar Wilde quote that does that for me.

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Born Crying

We are all born crying.  The smartest among us, though, spend the rest of our lives trying to shut up.

--Mitchell Hegman

Tommy

Tommy Tedesco at work.

--Mitchell Hegman

If the video here fails to launch, please click on the following link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzfqI259KMs 

Listening to Tommy Tedesco

You probably love listening to Tommy Tedesco.  If you are anywhere near my age, you might listen to him regularly.  You may hear him daily, if you listen to rock music from the 1960s and 1970s, or if you watch older television shows and movies from the 1960s through the 1980s.

You have heard Tommy Tedesco’s guitar on hits by Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Mamas and Papas, The Association, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, The Everly Bothers, Barbra Streisand, Frank Zappa, Cher, and dozens more.  Tommy played the theme songs for Bonanza, Green Acres, The Twilight Zone, M*A*S*H, Batman, and countless more television programs.  He worked on dozens of movies, including The Godfather, Jaws, and The Deer Hunter.

Tommy Tedesco is the most recorded guitarist in history.  For a stretch of time in the 1960s, he played in recording sessions for five days out of each week.  Tommy was part of a group of studio musicians called the “Wrecking Crew.”  Glen Campbell and Leon Russell rose to wide fame from this same select group of studio musicians.

Tommy Tedesco, and various members of the Wrecking Crew, bounced between recording studios in Los Angeles—notably, Capitol Records studio, and Phil Spector’s studio (where they became The Wall of Sound).  During the beginning of the rock and roll era, studio musicians such as Tommy played on the recording sessions for both solo artists and established bands.  Everyone wanted to work with them.  These studio musicians rarely received credit—even when, through their own musical innovation, they brought radio hits to life.

Tommy Tedesco died in 1997.  Though he never achieved widespread fame, he framed the sounds of our lives.

--Mitchell Hegman

Image: Wordpress