My brother, Tom, broke into song during our siblings’ reunion in June:

I got the undertaker with me, the ambulance too,
A student doctor offers me money for you.
I’m gonna kill you dead and bury you, dig you up for fun.
Gonna stand and watch the buzzards pick the meat off your bones.
I’m gonna hire a wretched butcher, chop you through and through.
I’m goin’ chop you into pieces just big enough for stew.
When I get through everybody that I know, Jones oh Jones, I mean, Jones oh Jones.

He then told us a story about our father which speaks a thousand words about Dad’s character. Ten years older than me, Tom had more time with Dad and I loved soaking up this story.

It was in April 1977 when first Dad and then Tom jumped up on stage to join a local Calypso band in a restaurant in the Bahamas to sing “Jones oh Jones”. Dad had loaned Tom his George Symonette album, “Calypso and Goombay Rhythms”, a few months before and they both knew all the lyrics.

Hugh Horler was the quiet intellectual, the observer, and when he spoke people listened because his few words were worth listening to. Picturing Dad up on stage belting out this fast-paced, funny song with his twenty-three-year-old son rounds out my memory of him.

But Tom’s story goes even deeper than that. It sheds light on one of Dad’s key character traits: He had a great interest in the world and all it has to offer. When I asked Tom for more background, in an email he wrote:

Dad was always very respectful and endlessly curious about other people’s cultural heritage, an interesting trait for someone born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1920. During his early retirement in the Bahamas, he fell in love with Calypso music and George Symonette’s album became a favourite. Always keen to share his insights with the family, he loaned me the album.

Sharing stories, giving us a window into peoples’ characters, is what drives me. We need to capture these gems to not only keep the memory of our forebears alive, but to guide our children to greatness.