EVERETT – Two days before celebrating his 70th birthday Wednesday, Del Varney’s car was stolen from the driveway of his home on Crown Drive.
Varney is legally blind and cannot drive himself, but he bought the car – a 1990 Toyota Camry – from a friend for $4,000 a year ago so his youngest daughter, Kaylene, 17, could shuttle him to the grocery store, the bank and the doctor’s office.
For now, he has to lean on friends and a special bus service to get around.
“To me, it’s the most degrading thing to have to call somebody and ask them to take me somewhere,” said Varney, whose hobbies included flying planes and racing cars before a rare medical condition caused him to begin losing his sight in 1993.
Sgt. Robert Goetz with the Everett Police Department said the car theft is being investigated.
The resident of Everett’s quiet View Ridge Madison neighborhood said he feels personally violated by Monday’s theft.
He blames state laws that he says don’t go far enough to punish car thieves.
“This is one of the nicest, quietest neighborhoods,” he said, in an upstairs living room of his newly remodeled house overlooking Possession Sound.
Varney doesn’t know exactly when the car was stolen, but he thinks it was taken Monday morning.
His family drove it Sunday to visit his father’s gravesite at Floral Hill Cemetery in Bothell.
Varney does clerical work for a building materials supplier in Everett, but he said most household expenses are paid with Social Security payments and his wife’s income.
He said it would be a hardship to come up with the cash to buy a new car right away.
“Taking your independence away is just the pits,” he said.
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