John Letson passed away early Monday morning. He was 76 years old. For those of you who didn’t know John, he was a wonderful, exceptional man. He grew up on the North Shore and married Sheila, his high school sweetheart. They lived in a house on Grand Boulevard in North Vancouver and had a summer home at King Edward Bay on Bowen Island. John owned a company that manufactured sawmill equipment. He sold the company in the mid 70’s and went back to college where he studied sculpting. He and Sheila moved to Bowen and John became one of those wonderful eccentric characters who drove an old pick-up truck and looked like he’d just been thrown out of somewhere. He carved wooden bowls and pounded copper and poured bronze. He had a spot at Granville Market and the Sunday Market. He could figure out a mechanical problem faster than you could describe it and he was always up for anything. But the fact that John was an engineer, an artist, an outdoorsman and an inventor is only incidental to what he was. John was fun. When you went there for dinner everything was larger than life. There was a story surrounding every dish. Carving the meat was a comedy routine. It didn’t hurt that Sheila is a fabulous cook and we were never short of libation.
He enjoyed life every day. He did what he wanted unless Shiela made him do otherwise and then he bitched and complained until he had everybody laughing.
I remember the first time he went on an ocean cruise. With his buddy Derek. He was told that he would have to invest in some clothes suitable for a formal dinner at the captain’s table. So he disappeared for a few minutes and returned wearing his father’s baby blue polyester tuxedo and he was so damn cute you just wanted to hug him. He took the tux on the cruise and wore it to dinner.
John was brilliant and brash and generous with his time and talents. He was always entertaining and sometimes outrageous. I am proud to count myself among his army of friends. We are all poorer for his passing.
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