A Guy’s View: Tribute to Adrian ‘Boo’ Husbands

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!” 

Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father’s Advice to His Son

During the 1970s, there was a youngster who travelled on the Sugar Hill bus who stood out because he was a little different.

He was the only one who always was weighted with a musical instrument in a black box that seemed too big for him, although he was a bit stout. With time, he gradually grew into closer parity with his box.

He was also different because of his sense of humour. He was apt to say funny things without cracking a smile while others were rolling in laughter. When he disembarked at Chimborazo, the bus always lost its most interesting occupant. Of course, by then most of his peers had already left.

That different youngster was Adrian Husbands, then a student of Harrison’s College and a budding musician. At that time we did not know how good he would become.

For the next 40 years, neither his sense of humour nor his affinity for his trombone would change. Later, his physical health became a major challenge. That challenge never changed his sense of humour, although it may have impacted on his ability to continue sharing his music with us. But I am sure that his inability to continue to deliver his music did not signify a loss of his love for his trombone and what he was able to do with it.

The name “Boo” was eventually attached to him. One can scarcely remember when he was not called “Boo”. Or how he came by the nickname. But it fitted him and he wore it well. 

Adrian “Boo” Husbands was a disciplined, tenacious character who brought life to his environment. He made the people who knew him happy, whether he was entertaining them or just being himself. His was a life of value and significance.

As a young student, he obviously worked hard on his music. His dedication to his music was evident by the fact that he never seemed to be separated from his instrument. Later, the best evidence of his hard work was displayed in the quality of his musicianship. He was a fantastic musician. 

The last two verses of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, which are reproduced above, capture the man which Adrian Husbands became, at least in my view. He talked with crowds, walked with persons of all strata, but remained Boo. He became a man.

His music and humour were so infectious that few remember that he was also intellectually strong. He wrote on cultural values, identified the destructive “meism” that was creeping into our culture ahead of most, and did sterling work on the National Commission on Law and Order between 2002 and 2004.

Death has crossed my path so often that I have probably become a little immune to it. But when a friend called on Thursday morning to say that Boo had passed it was still a bit unbelievable. Although his medical challenges were common knowledge, his passing was not contemplated. 

Persons who achieve greatness in a field of endeavour become known for that one thing. Sometimes it can be forgotten that they are not their profession. Boo was an outstanding musician, but he was able to live beyond his music because he was more than a music maker.

His health issues became relatively public, but the most public individuals still have their private moments and concerns. Boo’s unsmiling humour always housed his private thoughts. One can only imagine what non-verbal communications he had with himself as his health faltered. What we were shown was his undaunted spirit.

His fight to cope with his condition also caused him to disclose that he had faith in God, whatever Boo perceived him to be. Knowing Boo, it is possible that he had some spiritual insight or understanding of God that was peculiarly his. 

In demonstrating his faith as it helped him to cope with his failing sight, he spoke of reaching a Bus Stop, just before an approaching bus. But there was one problem; he could not read the destination sign. As fate would have it, another person came to the bus stop in the nick of time and was able to tell him the destination of the approaching bus and stop it. What seemed like coincidence he recognised as the hand of God in his affairs. 

Boo grew up in St. Joseph when the parish was distinguished only for its quality human resource and fertile soil. Some of us thought that we were good cricketers, but that may have been little more than wishful thinking. Our better fast bowlers were known for the speed they generated from their elbows, and our good batsmen were not regular accumulators of significant runs, beyond the school level.

Music was not one of the things for which the parish was known, although there were a few bands that dotted the landscape. None of the bands in Boo’s era had a brass section, so he could not have been influenced by anything in his environment in taking up the trombone. And yet he became accomplished in the playing of that instrument. His love affair with that instrument must have originated within him. 

Boo has left us to go on a journey which we will all have to take in the fullness of time. Some may say that his passing was untimely because he was still at an age where much more could have been expected of him. But is death ever untimely? That may be the subject of debate, and perhaps, another article. Suffice it to say, he has gone the way of all souls. Hopefully, there may be reunification with his loved ones at some time in the future.

None of us can speak with certainty about the future. What we may give testimony of is what we saw of Boo on this side of heaven. He was a person who touched lives in a positive way, and hence, he was of service to his fellowman. Kipling would have been satisfied that Boo became a true man.