A MEDLEY OF MEMORIES: Reaching 100, Island man has a melody to share and a story or two to tell

Published 12:04 pm Thursday, October 1, 2015

Every thing in life is a story.

Just ask George Scott, Bainbridge Island resident since 1960, who will soon turn 100 years old.

“Everything I’ve done has been an experience,” Scott said. “And every experience is a story.”

Just give him an afternoon and he’ll tell you a story or two. After all, in his 99 years, he’s been a kid growing up in Seattle, an Army radar maintenance and signal corpsman, a printer’s helper, a stationery and greeting card designer, a painter, a musician, a sailboat maker, a husband and a father.

“I’m just a guy who never really knew what he wanted to do,” he said. “All my life I’ve just sort of lived on the edge.”

With his 100th birthday just around the corner — on Nov. 2 — Scott isn’t sure what’s kept him going all these years, other than he likes to learn. That’s why he’s taken up teaching himself to play the harmonica. But we’ll get to that. First, the beginning.

Scott was born and raised in Seattle. His parents owned greenhouses near Seward Park. As a kid, he recalls a life that was fun.

“We were poor,” he said. “We didn’t have much money. But we always had fun. We’d ride our bikes down to the park and go swimming. My childhood was interesting.”

Sometimes he’d help out in the greenhouses. But from an early age he knew he wanted to be an artist. When he graduated from Franklin High School in 1933, he took a few art classes.

“I didn’t have the money to pay for the classes,” he said. “So the teacher let me paint on the walls to pay my tuition.”

From that he got a few jobs, including one that didn’t quite work out.

“It was a night spot in Chinatown,” he said. “Our teacher got us this job to paint the walls and the ceiling to look like it was a cave. But once we got started, the owner came in and told us to leave. Apparently he wasn’t in on the deal.”

He and the other artist didn’t argue. They left.

Soon he was working for a printing company, because he wasn’t making a living with his art. In 1941, he joined the Army and found himself in boot camp on the very day that Pearl Harbor was attacked.

His Army travels took him to San Clemente Island, San Diego, Okinawa, and Kansas City, where he spent six weeks in radio technician school. It was there that he met a young woman named Jean, who eventually became his wife. After the Army, they settled in Kansas City where Scott went to work for a greeting card company, drawing illustrations for cards.

“It was the best job I ever had,” he said. “But it was in Kansas. I could only take it for two years. I missed Seattle too much.”

He convinced his wife to move with him back to Seattle and they put down roots. He needed a job and contacted another greeting card company. They didn’t have an opening, but the owner said, “If you can draw me a card for this company and if they buy it, you’ve got a job.”

He did, and they did, and he was hired.

“I don’t really remember what it looked like,” Scott said. “I just remember it was for a company called Nabisco and it was simple with blue and yellow.”

Jean and George had four children; three girls and a boy. He continued to work at card companies and for printers and stationers.

“I’d do layouts and some artwork and retouch photos,” he said. “It was all production stuff.”

He missed having time to paint for himself. But he knew he had a family to support and needed that 9-to-5 job.

In 1959, they found a cabin on the waterfront on Port Madison. They bought it and George began to renovate it into the family home. Their youngest son, Jeff, was still at home and they moved to Bainbridge the following year.

Because there wasn’t a home supply store on the island, Scott made many trips to Seattle with his big Pontiac and loaded up on lumber and other needs for the house. It became a four-year project.

In 1977, Scott retired from the stationary company, and with time on his hands, he finished a few other projects.

“I built a sailboat,” he said.

“I had learned to sail years earlier and had had a couple of sailboats. But I wanted to make my own.”

He made the 26-foot sailboat on the beach below his house and named her the Snow Goose.

“Now there’s a story,” Scott begins. He built it from plans he got from a man from New Zealand. He sailed it many places including the San Juans. Eventually he sold it and years later he got a call from a man in Miami.

“He said ‘Did you build the Snow Goose?’” Scott said. “He wanted to know a few things about it. But I found out later he couldn’t get it fixed and he had to take it downstream. That was the end of the Snow Goose.”

During the years that Scott was still working, his wife began delivering newspapers. She stashed away her earnings, and when George retired they traveled.

A Caribbean cruise. South America. Africa. India. Australia. The Middle East.

“We did it on the cheap,” he said. “We’d carry packs and we’d camp a lot.”

About four years ago, his wife became ill and passed away. But he’s remained in his home where he cooks and cleans for himself, mows his own lawn, and occasionally takes his 1963 Volkswagen Bug out for a drive.

“It’s my workout,” he said. “Driving that Bug means moving my feet around and using my hands for steering and changing gears. It’s not like these modern cars that do everything for you.”

Speaking of modern, Scott isn’t too happy when he goes to Ace Hardware or Rite Aid, because he has to sort through a lot of new products when what he really wants is just another one of what he had.

“I think that’s what’s changed the most in the past 100 years,” Scott said. “There’s just too much stuff. Everything is so complicated now. I just want the same old simple things and I can’t get them anymore.”

His bucket list? He’s really done everything he wants to do.

But of recent he’s taken out his harmonica, a Horner Marine Band model he bought 50 years ago or so and something that he put away years ago when his wife wasn’t very fond of his playing.

And he’s learning to use chopsticks.

“They’re really neat when you want to pick out just one thing you want to eat,” he said. “But it’s pretty tough to eat oatmeal with them.”

He watches television some, mostly CNN and Fox News.

“I’m not a conservative,” he said. “I’m actually for Bernie [Sanders for president]. I just watch to see what they’re saying about him.”

Sitting beside him is Daisy, his 10-year-old Yorkie, which his wife decided she had to have when they were on a trip to Eastern Washington.

“Now there’s a story…”