Larry “Sam” Huston 1946-2007

My last post was an obituary notice, so since I seem to be on an unfortunate roll with that, I figured I would write a little about the recent passing of my Uncle Larry “Sam” Huston. Sam succumbed to his battle with a stomach tumor Thursday morning on January 18th. I knew he was ill for quite some time and after seeing him this past Christmas, I feared for the worst. At the time of his last moments he was strong, excepting and surrounded by his loving family. He was the third oldest of six siblings, my mother being the second youngest. Uncle Larry or “Sam” (a nickname we all used) had a great sense of humour. He was always the one to insert a joke at the right moment (often bent just the right way) to make my brother Jason, my cousin Adam and I explode into laughter. If you had to boil it down, I would add one part Benny Hill and three parts Al Bundy.

During many holiday visits at his house I would sneak away from the family and raid his VHS collection. Actually, he didn’t own a VHS player or even a Beta machine. He owned a VHD player. That’s Video High Density if you weren’t sure. Released in 1981, these wood-grained players were the next “marvel of advanced technology” for the home video market and boasted better quality in picture and sound than VHS and Beta players. The format for VHD’s used giant sized discs (or a CED - Capacitance Electronic Disc) that you would manually shove into the machine. Named caddies, they were roughly the size of a vinyl record sleeve. Until Laserdiscs came around, this was the best you could get. He’s the only person I knew that ever had one. They’ve since become a retro oddity and for years, no one knew what the hell I was talking about when I tried to describe it.

It was here in Sam’s finished basement where I got an education in comedy classics and the odd sci-fi flick. Westworld, Stripes, Caddyshack, Blazzing Saddles, Animal House, Blues Brothers, Outland, Trading Places, Easy Money - the list goes on and on. I couldn’t wait until the next time we visited to see what new movies he had collected.
It’s sad but I’m glad his suffering is over. I’ll miss him greatly, just as much I’ll miss his infectious laugh that I still hear when I watch Meatballs III.

I returned home from London after the funeral feeling a bit somber from the weekend to find an email from Amanda D, a good friend to some of us here at RM, about the passing of her husband Stefan D from www.deucetattoo.com. Both are very talented tattoo artists, whom I met a few years ago through Shane at King of Fools. Stefan was a very intelligent, funny, outgoing guy who did a great deal of traveling and truly cherished life. I knew he had overcome a previous illness, but I had no idea it got that bad over the last few months. Sadly, he lost his battle with lung cancer this past Friday. My friendship with Stefan was all too brief and I really enjoyed my time around him. My sincere condolences go out to Amanda and their families.