Farewell to the ‘Maverick Man’

Jack Bradley was a neighbor to many in Shoreline.

Recognized often near his 1970s blue Ford Maverick, to those who saw him, talked with him or offered their help, the guy known as “Maverick Man” was a common sight.

People wondered who he was, what caused him to have to live in his car and why he was always working under the hood. He was a fixture around Fred Meyer and Jack in the Box on Aurora Avenue North. The unmistakable blue, dented car with a rusted hood was rotated throughout the Sears and Highland Ice Arena parking lots over the past 20 years. Most recently, it could be found behind Darrell’s Tavern, near Schuck’s Auto Supply at Aurora Avenue North and North 182nd Street.

But Bradley can’t be found near his Maverick anymore. He died Feb. 19 at Northwest Hospital after suffering a stroke at the age of 58. A note announcing his death was taped to the car the same day. Shortly after that, the car became topped with bouquets of flowers and notes that haven’t stopped being placed and taped on the vehicle more than a week later.

On Feb. 20, Shoreline resident Rita Taylor’s son told her the Maverick Man had died. She was one of several residents who stopped by the car that afternoon.

In December, she said her husband gave him a heavy jacket.

“He told him, ‘We don’t like you out here in the cold, please wear this to keep warm,’” she said. “He didn’t really want to take it but we made him take it.”

Although Taylor never saw him wear the jacket, she recognized it in the back of his car, among newspapers, emptied plastic bottles and blankets.

“We always called him Maverick Man, but when my husband came to give him the jacket he said his name was Jack,” she said.

Paul Hagerman said he knew Bradley from working in the area and that he rarely took handouts from anyone.

“He was a nice man, quiet and very respectful of everyone and everything,” Hagerman said. “I think he was the most respectable homeless man I’d ever met.”

When Bradley’s car broke down months ago, Stephen Crago, who owns a hair salon near Fred Meyer, said he tried to help. He was used to seeing Bradley walk over to Fred Meyer every morning to use the restroom to wash up. Over the last few weeks, he said, he noticed Bradley was walking more with his head and shoulders bent toward the ground and he worried about him. On Feb. 8, he collapsed beside his car and was taken by Shoreline medics to Northwest Hospital.

Sue Hammond-Dizard, at Darrell’s Tavern made sure Bradley had the keys to his car before he was taken away.

“He was awake and alert,” she said. “He mentioned he was dizzy and couldn’t get up.”

While in the hospital, Bradley suffered a stroke that put him in a coma he never recovered from.

Crago visited the hospital the day before Bradley died.

“I went to Northwest Hospital to see if I could be there for him because I didn’t know if anyone was going to be there for him,” Crago said. “I held his hand and said, ‘God will take care of you, you just go and we’ll remember you.’”

Many, including Crago, wondered if Bradley had family. Crago brought the license plate number of the Maverick to the hospital with him to help find family members.

It turned out, the independent, private Maverick Man did have relatives—an ex-wife in Kenmore and a 39-year-old son in Duvall who had lost contact with him.

His son, Jack Bradley III, said he last spoke to his father five years ago when he was living in an apartment. He asked his father if there was anything he could do to help him get situated but was told no, he was fine. He heard Bradley moved out of his apartment because others didn’t like the fact he worked on his car. He didn’t know where he was. The last time he saw his father was in Seattle on Pier 70 some 21 years ago during a chance encounter.

“He was not perfect, his mind wasn’t quite right,” he said. “He was very distant like it wasn’t a huge deal he was talking to his son.”

Bradley played guitar in the late ’60s with a band named, A Boy and His Dog, along with Nancy and Ann Wilson before the conception of the band Heart, according to his son. He also worked as a draftsman at Boeing, but was part of the Boeing’s layoffs in the early 1970s.

Bradley attended Oak Harbor High School and married his high school sweetheart in February 1968. The couple divorced in late 1969.

Bradley’s ex-wife, Judy Thompson, visited Bradley every day for three days leading up to his death. It was the first time she had contact with him in the past 32 years but by that time, Bradley had slipped into an unresponsive state.

“I prayed with him and read from the Bible,” she said.

The couple dated throughout their junior and senior years of high school, Thompson said. She described Bradley as outgoing, happy, kind and warm. He played in several bands.

She has visited the car site a number of times and said she talked to a couple of young men who received help on their own vehicles from Bradley.

“I heard a lot of people say Jack would help everybody but he never wanted anything,” Thompson said. “Even though he didn’t have his family in his life it seems like he had a niche. It’s comforting to me knowing that so many people cared about him.”

She missed Bradley, she said, and would have liked to have known where he was.

The outpouring of support for his father is amazing, Jack said. He was planning a memorial for Saturday, March 1, when he was told about another memorial scheduled for the same day in his father’s memory.

“I had no idea he was such a fixture in the community,” he said.

He has also visited the growing memorial on the car several times.

“I heard a lot of people saying he touched a lot of lives and some people told stories of him working on his car,” he said.

The old Ford isn’t in working condition, Jack said and added that he’ll probably take advantage of offers he has received to help move it. Inside the car he found paperwork documenting the repairs Bradley had done over the years to his vehicle. His father found a place that sold parts for old Fords in Cincinatti, Ohio, Jack discovered, and had various parts shipped to Darrell’s Tavern and to a P.O. Box.

His family doesn’t know why Bradley didn’t try to contact them.

“My guess is he just didn’t want to be a burden,” Jack said.

But a burden to many in the community he was not. Those who stopped by his car consistently asked about any plans to hold a memorial service.

On Feb. 26, Terry Green of the Highland Ice Arena finalized arrangements for Bradley’s memorial service at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Ave. N. Instead of flowers, donations of nonperishable food items will be collected for Hopelink, a food bank located in Shoreline, she said.

Green said she always made sure Bradley had an invitation to the annual free Thanksgiving dinner at the Westgate Chapel in Edmonds. He spent the majority of his time parked in the Highland Ice Arena parking lot, she added, and when patrons of the arena would periodically asked about him, she told them his name and that he was harmless.

“They would stop being afraid and see him as a person,” Green said. “He stirred up a lot of compassion.”

The compassion is apparent in the form of notes, stuffed animals, articles of clothing, art work, cookies, a hockey stick and pucks, gummy candies, a ceramic angel, a toy taxi, candles and more and more flowers as people visit the Ford Maverick.

“You put a face on homelessness in Shoreline,” a typed note taped to the car read. “You were accepted and respected for who you were, not for where or how you lived. You touched our lives in a way you do not even realize.”

Green and many others echoed the sentiment.

“He wasn’t just any homeless guy; he was our homeless guy,” Green said.