At the Island County Sheriff’s Office on Camano Island, there is a photograph on the wall of a former deputy, Jack Brayton, circa 1958. His old business card is posted near the picture, when he could be reached by phone at 2092.
That’s my Uncle Jack.
He died Oct. 27 at his Arizona home. My Auntie Bonnie found him after a nap. Jack Brayton was 83.
Camano Island lost a “character,” said his son, Daryl Brayton, who owns Camano Glass.
Their family operated and lived at Island Cold Storage. It was one of the first businesses drivers passed when they left Stanwood, crossed the flats, and headed up the hill on the island.
From kindergarten through graduation, my cousins, Daryl, Gary and Karen, were the first kids picked up on the school bus and the first dropped off from Stanwood.
Daryl said there were only about 1,000 residents on the Island in the 1950s. He knew everybody, but not the summer people. He was told by his folks he could wander anywhere he wanted, except he couldn’t leave the island.
Those were the days.
Before Camano was crowded with businesses and homes, sleepy traffic picked up on Friday and Sunday nights as vacationers drove on and off the Island.
We were one of those summer families with a cabin at Utsalady Bay. My family stopped at Island Cold Storage, catty corner to Cascade Lumber on Highway 532, on our way to the beach, to see Uncle Jack and Auntie Bonnie. He was a butcher by day, and patrolled the island as a deputy at night.
Often, a cousin or two jumped in our old Chevy wagon and came with us to the beach. There was so much joy whenever we spied Uncle Jack, in his black and white overalls, whether he was cutting meat at his butcher block or cooking dinner.
“You could always tell what the menu was,” said his daughter-in-law, Peg Brayton. “It would be all over his T-shirt.”
A World War II veteran, Jack was the arm of the law on Camano, with his boss, the sheriff, across the bay on Whidbey Island.
One time a body was found at Maple Grove. Uncle Jack went to the scene, and decided he didn’t want to wait three hours on the beach for the coroner to come over from Coupeville.
The deputy put the remains in the back of his station wagon, but the door wouldn’t close. He covered bare white legs sticking out with a blanket, lowered the back window, and went to the cold storage plant to call the medical examiner.
As my cousin, Daryl, tells the story, the owner of Camano Lumber meandered across the street, noticed something protruding from the back of the wagon, lifted the blanket and saw two wrinkled feet.
The lumberyard owner lost his lunch at the back of the car, Daryl said. His dad was told to wait at the scene of the next drowning.
Uncle Jack was a nut for music and had a pump organ, juke box and player piano. Granddaughter Shelly Murphy said he loved sitting around a campfire, poking coals with a stick and talking about the old days. He adored oysters, playing cards and ferry rides.
“He told about getting to steer a ferry in the San Juan Islands,” Shelly said. “He always could talk his way into places that nobody else could.”
When Daryl played basketball and football for the Stanwood Spartans, his dad was at every game and ran the football sideline chains for 20 years with Harold “Pug” Lund, 89, of Stanwood.
“We used to get into the games for nothing that way,” Lund said, laughing. “Sometimes Jack had a hard time keeping up with me on the sidelines.”
Lund said his old friend was a great storyteller, but you didn’t have to laugh at every joke.
“He was a really good friend,” Lund said. “Full of baloney.”
My dad said his younger brother got on a kick of barbecuing turkey.
“It tastes just like ham,” Uncle Jack said.
He brought one of his prized barbecued turkey breasts to a family dinner, exclaiming again that it tasted just like ham.
My dad, who holds his own in the joke business, said “Jack, if you wanted ham, why didn’t you just buy ham?”
That is the banter of my childhood. At Brayton parties, the fun didn’t start until Uncle Jack arrived.
There is an espresso stand called the Log Cabin where Island Cold Storage once stood. Behind the coffee shack is a magnificent weeping willow.
My Uncle Jack planted that tree. It’s the only thing left of the old homestead.
When drivers pass, they should take a look, and remember when the Island was quaint enough to harbor a real local character.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.
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