Thomas "Tab" Burke

Thomas 'Tab' Burke, 1957-2005

By Siona LaFrance
Staff writer

Anyone who ever heard Tab Burke wail "Stand by Me" or another golden oldie into a karaoke microphone knew the man couldn't sing a lick. That didn't matter though, because Burke was always just out for fun and a few laughs. A master of silly dances and funny faces, Burke loved cracking people up. Not long ago, he kept his daughters, Chantelle and Priscilla, in stitches as they played monopoly well into the night.

"I can't remember laughing that hard in a long time," Chantelle Burke said.

At 48, Tab Burke -- his nickname was short for Thomas Alexis Burke -- didn't always have a lot to laugh about. About 13 years ago, while doing security work, a line of lights fell on him and injured his back and leg. He'd never be the same, unable to work and struggling with severe pain that several operations couldn't ease. He couldn't take the pills doctors gave him, his daughter said, so he started to drink to cope with the pain. The eventual result was cirrhosis of the liver and a warning that he had six months to live, a prediction he outlasted by eight years.

He was ill, but never complained, friends and family said. He was the same Tab they knew and loved. He still practiced his karate, still made his goofy faces, still kept people laughing. Even so, people knew him as a man of enormous compassion, who would do anything for anyone.

Lately, Burke was spending most of his time at his home in Violet, nurturing the front yard flower garden that was his pride and joy.

"It was just beautiful," said his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Bascle. "He loved planting things just to watch them grow."

Burke also loved living in St. Bernard Parish, where he was raised. He had a devotion to family, which extended to Bascle's family and his Rottweiler, whose name was Bobby Lee McGee. The first name came from an old friend who died a year ago, the middle name was Bascle's and the last name taken from a song they both liked, Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee."

Burke once told his daughter that when he died, he wanted it to be at home, with his dog. She knew that after so many years of pain, he was ready for death.

Before Hurricane Katrina, she begged him to evacuate, but he wanted to stay at home.

Bascle, who rode out the storm with her mother and sister in the attic of the house she shared with Burke, last saw him alive as he tried to rescue their dog in the rapidly rising flood water.

Burke's funeral was Oct. 1 in Marrero, the community where Chantelle lives in a house her father helped her buy just a month before Katrina hit.

When she and her sister visited Burke's ruined home last week, the only items they could salvage were two old glass medicine bottles. Burke had found them under some old homes in the French Quarter when he used to do pest control work.

"My dad used to think they were cool," Chantelle said.

It's impossible, she said, to remember her father with a heavy heart.

"Every time I cry, a funny memory of him pops up in my head and makes me laugh," she said.

"I know he's in heaven with his animals and I know he'll continue to watch over my sister and me."

Published in The Times-Picayune.