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Garwood Sale

I’ve been asked many times to describe what living on Orcas Island is like, and I think I’ve finally come up with a word that describes it fairly well

By Warren Miller

Orcas Island, where we live spring, summer and fall, is only about 85 miles north of Seattle and yet an estimated 90 percent of the people in Seattle haven’t taken the ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island. This is just fine with my wife and me because we like the quietness of it. Orcas Island is the same size as New York City’s Manhattan Island, but whereas it has 14 million people, we have 4,500.

On the last Saturday in June every year about 1,000 of those people all visit the oldest and best hardware store on the island.

The last Saturday in June, Paul Garwood, the owner, has his annual discount hardware and lumber sale. Everybody is entitled to discounts of 20 percent on everything in the store. The Kiwanis Club cooks pancakes, eggs and sausages starting at 7:30 for only $6 and Paul donates all of the food so that the gross income goes to the Kiwanis Club.

The Duct Tape band played aggressively from 11 in the morning until the crowd thinned out in the middle of the afternoon. They played from the flatbed trailer the company uses to haul merchandise from Seattle to Orcas Island several times a week.

I’m more interested in people watching than I am in listening to music that is made up by the band leader. He usually hires eight or 10 musicians and hopes that five or six of them will show up on Saturday morning after a late gig on Friday night.

A young lady stopped by our table to say hello to Paul and she was carrying what I thought was a 20-pound bag of potting soil. She had three very well mannered children between 5 and 8 years old. When I offered to hold her bag of potting soil it turned out to be a 40-pound bag of chicken feed. Paul and I chatted with her for a few minutes and I almost offered to help her carry the bag back to her car until I tried to lift it. She picked it up and expertly threw it up in her arms with her knee,  and then walked off to the car while Paul and I looked after her three children.

There was about a one hour period between the pancake serving and Paul’s crew beginning to flip the free hamburgers. I think some of the people who showed up for the free hamburgers brought every kid within a half a mile of where they lived and for some of them it looked like the biggest and best lunch they had since last year on the same last Saturday in June.

The main source of income on Orcas Island is either the construction business or the tourist business. There is literally no manufacturing on the island and very little farming other than the organic farms that mainly supply the island restaurants. In years past, timber, fishing and fruit farming were the main sources of revenue, but no more.

The woman with the 40-pound bag of chicken feed came back for her three children after the long walk to her car. While she was gone, Paul and I each got a plate full of brownies for the children. They had a bit of trouble shoveling the brownies in their mouths because they had helium filled balloons tied to each wrist, but they managed quite well to clean their plates.

I’ve been asked many times to describe what living on Orcas Island is like, and I think I’ve finally come up with a word that describes it fairly well. It is a very “gentle” place to live.

Where else can you have a small power boat at your own dock and go salmon or ling cod fishing, put your crab pots out, catch a limit in an hour, or if you want to just rock ‘n roll in the sun, put your shrimp pots down 300 or more feet and have a seafood dinner party with your neighbors? If you don’t like to fish, we have a nice nine-hole golf course at $25 for 18 holes and a 2,400 foot mountain where you can drive a car to the summit.

If you would like to have a wonderful, small-town weekend, set aside the last Saturday in June next year and visit the Island Hardware spring sale, complete with free hamburgers and 20 percent discount on merchandise.