Tributes

Tristan Gioia Hughes, of Narberth, PA, died at home on January 4. He was 32. He is the beloved son of Samuel Hughes and Patrice Raccio Hughes, and the brother of Jesse Hughes, all of Narberth. He also leaves many loving uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends. Born August 26, 1990, in Philadelphia, Tristan was proud to be the only native Philadelphian in his family. After they moved to Narberth in 1992, he attended Merion Elementary School and Bala Cynwyd Middle School, and graduated from Lower Merion High School in 2009. Tristan had a luminous heart and a poetic spirituality. He loved all manner of music and could always pick out quality, from New Orleans R&B and reggae to Nick Drake and Fela Kuti to Kevin Ayers and Syd Barrett. He devoured a broad smorgasbord of movies, from Cagney & Bogart to Pauly Shore, from Rhinoceros to Stepbrothers. A talker even before he could form coherent sentences, he had an outstanding ear for dialogue—and a genius for storytelling, as his family and friends knew so well. Tristan packed more into 32 years than most people do in much longer lives. Early on he developed a passion for the outdoors, as vacations took the family from Maine to Colorado to British Columbia and beyond. As he grew older, he combined that passion with a love of adventure. He spent three summers with The Student Conservation Association, which sends high school students into state and national parks to do trail and conservation work. On crews in the White Mountains National Forest, Yosemite National Park, and Glacier National Park, he nurtured his love of the outdoors, hard work, and fun — witness this video of him dancing and singing “La Bamba” on a picnic table, the result of losing a bet, while his fellow crew members choke with laughter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v3pj0-lN0A After one semester at Green Mountain College in Vermont, Tristan decided the academic world was not for him. He made the outdoors his classroom, starting with a paid six-month SCA internship with the U.S. Forestry Service on Prince of Wales Island, studying the regrowth of clear-cut sections in Alaska’s rainforest. The youngest of his crew by several years, he was soon taking float planes to remote areas, camping in the wilderness, measuring trees with laser equipment, and having wild times with locals and crewmates at tiny backwater bars and festivals—all of which he recounted in hilariously evocative letters home. The next summer he drove back to Alaska with a friend for another four-month internship, then met up with another friend in California and road-tripped home with her. Peaks Island, Maine, was his home the following winter, and he was delighted to learn that winter island life is conducive to multi-generational backyard bonfires. He commuted by ferry to Southern Maine Community College, but he had lived so intensely in the hardscrabble world that the college experience struck him as “adult day care.” The next year he found himself in charge of high school kids as an SCA crew leader—first in Kenai Fjords National Park near Juneau, then in Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota’s Black Hills. He had many happy memories of the experience—but (he confided to his mother) he was never so relieved as when he got the last student on her plane home. His final SCA adventure was an internship building a rock turnpike on California’s Pacific Crest Trail, where he survived an errant boulder and a hair-raising drive to the nearest hospital. Then he switched gears. Having fallen in love with New Orleans when his family did post-Katrina recovery work in nearby Mississippi, he caught The Crescent at 30th Street Station with no plans beyond becoming a cook. In the train’s lounge car, he met two kids who had reserved space at the Marquette House hostel on Carondolet Street. Why not join them? He ended up living there for almost a year, and his tales of hostel life and revelry—with a cast of characters straight out of Tennessee Williams or John Kennedy Toole—would have made a terrific film or novella. After seeing a “help wanted” sign in a Subway shop, he told himself: “You didn’t come to New Orleans to work in a Subway.” Instead, he walked into Roux, a small Creole cafe on Magazine Street, and talked his way into a job. He soon parlayed that into a line-cook job at Meauxbar, a quality bistro on Rampart Street. His love for New Orleans did not include its sweltering summer weather, and soon he and a friend were on their way to California and the WWOOFing life. Working first at The Rocking 7 Ranch in Coalinga, and then at The Orchid, an organic farm near Santa Barbara, he fell hard for California. Another friend had moved to Humboldt County in the state’s northern Lost Coast area, and Tristan decided to join him. There he became a cannabis grower, reveling in Arcata’s retro-hippie lifestyle and mastering the intricacies of growing outdoors. In 2017, Tristan and his brother, Jesse, took a memorable road trip from Boulder to San Diego, taking in Zion National Park and the Salton Sea — an area that became a source of fascination for Tristan. That summer, at work in Humboldt, a back injury combined with the lonely grower’s life and the sudden deaths of two close friends led Tristan to dull his pain with opioids. He was able to stop using, relapsed in 2019, and stopped again. The pandemic year, so horrible for so many people, was a relatively good one for Tristan, who divided his time between the Arcata house he rented with friends and his grow site in the hills. But by then the Humboldt magic was gone. In November of 2021, he moved back East for good. Working first as a delivery driver for Real Pizza in Narberth, he then took a line cook job at Feast Your Eyes Catering in Philadelphia, where he enjoyed both the work and his coworkers. “We loved working with Tristan,” said his employer, Lynn Buono. “He was a hard worker, clever and picked up tasks easily, but above all he was kind to everyone, no matter their station in life. He was universally liked, which isn’t always the case in drama-filled kitchens.” The relapse that claimed his life was, by all accounts, very recent and well-hidden from family and friends. His heartbroken parents and brother have a message for everyone dealing with a loved one’s substance use disorder: Never think they’re out of the woods. Never let down your guard. There is no cure. Memorial donations may be made to the Tristan Hughes Memorial Scholarship at The Student Conservation Association (thesca.org) A celebration of Tristan’s life will be held February 19 at 2 p.m. at the Merion Tribute House in Merion. All are welcome.

Tributes

Tristan Gioia Hughes

August 26, 1990 - January 4, 2023