By Kevin Howard
On January 11, 1994, Grandad Bob Williams called with the news, “Your dad passed away last night of a massive heart attack. Arnett is taking care of the arrangements. You’ll need to make your travel plans and come home.”
The day that we all dread as children arrives. At the age of thirty-nine, both of my parents are gone. The celebration of Pops’ life is a catalyst for the Howard Clan to come together under one roof for the first time in fifteen years.
At his funeral, everyone gets up to share some good deed that Pops did, which they promised to keep secret. Burying Pops, just short of his sixty-nineth birthday, we lay him next to Mom in Oakdale Cemetery, Marysville, OH.
That evening, January 14th, Arnett plays an engagement at the Hoster Brewing Company and our Frazier neighborhood takes up half the joint. In the New Orleans tradition, the Howard Brothers send Pops off ‘on the good foot’. Surrounded by the people who were there when we first picked up instruments, all the Howard Brothers appear on stage together.
It’s a milestone. Our celebration takes us back to the basements and garages of Frazier Estates. Parent or child, thirty years later, everyone’s on the dance floor. Gerald’s daughter, Tina, joins us on the congas. Granddad sits proudly on stage with his grandsons, tapping his cane to the rhythm.
“Mrs. Estes, will you come on up here and sing us a song,” Arnett says. Father Time may be wearing on our bodies, but not our enthusiasm. Belting out a song that has the whole neighborhood thinking that they can sing, the night is a watershed event in all of our lives. Singing and dancing, we send our Old Man off to those pearly gates!
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