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w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m
It would be two years and nine surgeries before Hank was fully
mended, a process complicated by an addictive personality. In the
end, Hank lost his boyish good looks, but gained his signature look
—beard, sunglasses, and hat.
Later, Hank Jr. returned to the scene of his accident, a catharsis he
recorded in Living Proof:
"And then it comes back, in slow motion, and I see a tiny, limp
dummy tumbling and falling, soaring and sliding down the moun-
tain. I feel the dummy struggle to survive, and feel the hopelessness
when it realizes that I can't. I see the boulders coming up like an
express train, and I hear the sound again, as I've heard so
many times since. I see the dummy raise his hands to his
face, and I see his shock, again..."
It was a terror from which he'd never be entirely free.
But he was still here, and the mountain hadn't killed him.
Or, as he sang in one of his songs from 1980's Habits Old and
New, "I didn't die out there in Montana."
But he was still here,
and the mountain
hadn't killed him.
