Hoagy

On this day in 1899, one Howard Hoaglund Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana. Carmichael, known to everyone as Hoagy, was a great songwriter, credited with many contributions to what some still call the Great American Songbook.

I lived a couple blocks off campus in Bloomington, and there was a little diner nearby called The Gables. I ate lunch there often because they offered students a punch card deal -- twelve meals for the price of ten, or something like that. Their beef commercial was cheap and filling.

In the back at The Gables stood an old upright piano with a small plaque commemorating the fact that Carmichael wrote many of his hits there, when the building was a bar. Here's Diana Krall crooning a Carmicheal tune. Enjoy!