Scott Horton – A Farewell to Kings

We are young. Wandering the face of the Earth. Wondering what our dreams might be worth. Learning that we’re only immortal for a limited time.

Dreamline, by Rush

My younger brother, Scott Horton, passed away yesterday. We knew it was coming, he was surrounded by family and friends, it was peaceful, and he did it on his terms. I love all of that and I’m doing my best to keep that in mind, but today I can’t help but mourn for the loss of a great father, husband, brother, son, cousin, uncle, friend, neighbor, co-worker, concert-goer, sports enthusiast, artist, traveler, cat-lover, and overall human. (If you want to know why he’s a “Horton” and I’m an “Orta,” buy me a drink and I’ll tell you the story. I promise it will be worth your while.)

Scott and I were born only 20 months apart, so I don’t recall a time when he wasn’t around. Because we were so close in age, our childhood was filled with endless front yard football/basketball/baseball games, cap guns, model airplanes, green plastic army men, comic books and ninja throwing stars. We built bicycle ramps so that we could emulate Evil Knievel, waited in line to see all the Star Wars movies, and had “firework wars” where we would shoot roman candles and bottle rockets at each other. Thankfully, no one was (permanently) injured, but we did knock out a couple of teeth.

Come to think of it, a lot of the activities we did seemed completely normal in the 70s but would probably result in a call to Child Protective Services today. For example, it seemed that every kid in the neighborhood had a BB gun, the most popular choice being the Crossman air rifle that you could manually pump to build up air pressure. More pumps led to more pressure and more pressure led to faster BB velocity. So with that backdrop, we used to have BB gun wars where the rule was that you could only pump your rifle two times. Because we were 10-12 year old boys and said rule was only regulated by the honor system, it was inevitable that someone would get shot, it would hurt, they would scream “THAT WAS MORE THAN TWO PUMPS!” and a smallish scuffle would ensue. Good times.

Yet despite all of the things that we did together, we were polar opposites in many ways. He played the drums (loudly), I played the guitar (badly). (Note that neither of us wanted to play the piano, which was the instrument chosen by our parents.) While I ate whatever was put in front of me, Scott would eat only plain foods and his diet consisted primarily of hamburgers with no condiments, cheese pizza, pasta with no sauce, and grilled cheese sandwiches. (For the record, his taste palate increased significantly once he reached adulthood. Or maybe 30.)

We also could never agree on which sports team to support. He rooted for the Dodgers, while I rooted for the Reds. He rooted for the Dallas Cowboys, while I rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers. (As an aside, this latter rivalry got so heated mid-game one year that he threw a pen at me tip first like a spear with such uncanny accuracy that it ended up in my ear. Don’t fret, no damage was done other than I flopped more than a Premier League soccer player in the penalty area which I recall resulted in a spanking and timeout for Scott. Sorry about that.) He loved to play hockey – both the ice and rollerblade variety – and I still don’t get it to this day.  

And in music, although we found some common ground mainly in the classics (Zeppelin, Stones), our tastes were not generally aligned. When I was listening to punk bands like TSOL, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion and X, Scott loved hard/progressive/jazz rock bands like Night Ranger, Steely Dan, Cheap Trick, Triumph, The Cult and Joe Satriani. But if you know Scott, you will also know that he loved one band above all others – Rush. I cannot stress this enough – he really, really loved Rush. 

I will choose a path that’s clear. I will choose free will.

Free Will from Permanent Waves by Rush (1980)

I’ve spent a lot of words here describing what Scott did, but it is a lot harder to describe who Scott was. Quiet individualist comes to mind, but I might be more successful in this endeavor if I simply told you a story that happened long ago, but that I only learned of very recently. The story takes place at church. At least that is what our Dad assumed.

Our mother died when I was 12 and Scott was 10. That is important for this story only because when we went to church on Sunday, Dad was now a single parent and had to play zone rather than man-to-man defense. Scott, recognizing this, began telling our dad that he preferred sitting in the balcony with the choir rather than on the main floor with us. In hindsight, this seems completely unbelievable. Nonetheless, the ruse appeared to work and before mass began, Scott would part ways with us and head up to the balcony. What 10 year old Scott failed to mention but 54 year old Scott fessed up to, however, was that as soon as the service started and we were all now facing forward, he would leave church, walk four blocks (across a major thoroughfare no less) to a local store/deli called AJ’s that served milk shakes and had a couple of video games, and then when he knew mass was ending, he’d head back just in time for the post-church donuts mixer.

When he told me this story – again, only recently – I was stunned, and not because (a) I never knew this story or (b) it seems inconceivable that 10 year olds in 1970s Phoenix could do this every week and not be murdered or have some other bad thing happen to them. No, what stunned me was how smart it was. Scott did the calculus: I hate church, I like video games, and I like donuts. Hence, what clearer path to choose than one he chose? I need to use the decision making framework more often. 

Why are we here? Because we’re here, roll the bones.

Roll the Bones by Rush (1991)

Although we obviously spent a ton of time together early on, as kids are prone to do, we grew up, went to college, settled in different cities, got jobs and had kids. If that wasn’t enough, Scott, the overachiever, got a Ph.D. at the age of 45. We spoke less not for any reason other than life is busy. Then, nearly three years ago, he called to tell me that he was diagnosed with what turned out to be a rare brain cancer. 

As crises often do, Scott’s diagnosis reminded us what – and who – is important in your life. From that moment until yesterday, we made the effort to spend a lot more time together. And from that moment until yesterday, I watched Scott battle cancer and battle it well. He had two surgeries, two rounds of radiation, one round of chemo, and countless doctor visits. Through it all, he remained both stoic and hopeful that he would ultimately prevail.

What is even more impressive than how he battled cancer, is how the kid who would walk from church to AJ’s and back for donuts lived his life when the cancer and associated treatments took a pause and he felt better. In the last year and a half alone he traveled to Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He saw the sphere in Vegas and hiked in Zion. We saw The Cult while I was visiting Arizona. His will to live – to really live – consistently amazed me. Unfortunately, as it so often does, the cancer returned in August, and this time, there were no more treatments to be had.

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect; so hard to earn, so easily burned.

The Garden from Clockwork Angels (2012)

Between Thanksgiving and New Years as Scott’s condition began to worsen, I was lucky enough to spend a significant amount of time with Scott, his wife Carol, and their two incredible sons Deven and Ryan. Their support for Scott, and each other, throughout this ordeal never wavered. It was extraordinary yet I’ve been struggling today to write something that appropriately captured this love without sounding rote. Luckily for me, Deven did a far better job than I could ever do in this Instagram post.

I also got to witness the effect Scott had on the greater world. Every day seemed to bring another string of visitors to wish him well, most of whom I’d never met. Neighbors, co-workers, former students and friends, all came by with stories of how Scott had impacted their own journeys. And of this group, I was most impressed by the friends that he has known for a lifetime.

I’m fairly sociable, but of the people that I currently consider close friends, the earliest are probably from high school and most are people I met later in life. In this way, Scott and I also differ. Of his closest circle of friends, most have known Scott since he was 7 years old or younger. I was trying to figure out why and how this happened, and I think it is because Scott was always Scott. In his office at home, Scott showed me recently how over the years he had collected some of his favorite toys from childhood. At first I thought this was just nostalgia, but upon further reflection there was a simpler explanation: Scott has always known what he liked and who he liked (and who he didn’t like).  

And on that note, I’ll end with one more story to bring the point home. I found this book report he did when he was seven years old on Roger Staubach: Running Cowboy. I love this because he only had to answer two questions. First, “Tell what the book was about” to which Scott responded: “But he’s six-four and weighs 250, someone said. What would you do with him in [a] back alley. Listen said Roger, I’ve got four years of hand-to-hand combat I never got to use.” I searched for this book on Amazon, sadly to no avail. Regardless, I’m not totally sure he understood the question, I’m pretty sure that isn’t what the book was about, and I’m 100% sure that I love the fact that Scott thought that this passage was cool.

The second question was a two parter: “Did you like the story?” and “Why?” To which Scott responded: “Yes” and “I like football”. If only he had added “dumbass” to the end.

Nearly 38 years after Scott received an “OK” on this book report, his Ph.D. dissertation titled “High Fidelity Virtual Environments: Does Shader Quality or Higher Polygon Count Models Increase Presence and Learning” was approved and published. Although I’m 100% sure that I don’t understand this paper, it is clear that Scott had come a long way from his “I like football” days. But what is even more telling and touching and apropos is what Scott included on the “Acknowledgement” page:

“As I officially end my time in college and this chapter of my life, while moving on to bigger and better things, I’d like to quote Neal Peart of Rush in saying:

Why try? I know why

The feeling inside me says it’s time I was gone

Clear head, new life ahead

I want to be king now not just one more pawn… “

The last thing I told my brother yesterday was that I loved him and I’m grateful for that. At the risk of taking this Rush thing too far, Scott, I bid you farewell my extraordinary brother, a “Freewill” spirit, we celebrate your “Tom Sawyer” adventures, the “Closer to the Heart” moments that we shared, leaving us with “Time Stand Still” memories. And as you embark on the “Limelight” of eternity, know that you will forever be “The Spirit of the Radio” in our hearts. You were, and always will be, a king.