HandyMan Rich

About HandyMan Rich

Cars queue for the ferry to Whidbey most mornings along the waterfront, but HandyMan Rich's work is up on the bluff above that line, driveways perched over the Sound with a clear view of the lighthouse beam still sweeping in the pre-dawn dark. The same hands that fix a deck rail or hang a door through the rest of the year turn to a shovel when a cold front comes off the water, clearing those bluff-top driveways before a homeowner has to back down a slick grade toward the ferry line below. A steep driveway above open water asks for more care than one on flat ground, since a patch of ice up there means more than an inconvenience. Working the waterfront blocks and the residential streets climbing away from them toward Boeing's plant, the routes cover both the exposed bluff lots and the more sheltered ones behind. It's small, careful work done with the Sound and Whidbey Island as the constant backdrop.