Katrina's Lives Lost:	Thomas 'Tab' Burke, 1957-2005
Submitted By: 		N.O.V.A November 2005
Source:			Times Picayune 10-18-2005

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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."