At age two, Mark Coulthurst watched his father try to start a lawnmower. He also watched his father give up in frustration. And storm off into the house. When John Coulthurst returned to give it one more try, he found his son tugging on the starter cord of the stubborn machine. “Start you sonabitch,” his father heard him say with conviction. “Start you sonabitch.”
As his parents were soon to find out, their eldest child and only son was very much mechanically inclined. Once, on a family vacation in Canada, they found him up to his waist in Lake Sheridan, fixing somebody’s outboard motor. He was all of thirteen years old.
The owner of the resort invited him to stay on and fix other outboard motors during the remainder of that summer season. His parents agreed to let him stay, and Mark’s reaction was, “this sure beats picking strawberries.”
By age seventeen, his mechanical interests led him to a job as parts manager for a motorcycle shop. And soon he had another of his many businesses. This one he ran out of a small shed in his parent’s backyard, near the Lummi Indian Reservation north of Bellingham. He sold spark plugs to Canadians who crossed the border just to get them for a discount.
The Coulthurst’s soon learned their son was a true entrepreneur. His parents liked to tell the story of a band trip he took to Hawaii while he was still in high school. A clarinetist in the band, the young Coulthurst found himself in the unusual position of having a vehicle at his disposal while he was in the islands. His father had a friend who lived there — and the friend lent Mark his car.
While he was driving around Oahu, one of his high school buddies complained that he didn’t have decent shoes for going out on the town. Mark made him a proposition. He had extra shoes, he told this friend; he’d rent him a pair.
On the same trip, some of the band members got into playing an all-night poker game. Mark managed to make some money at the gaming table, but it wasn’t by playing cards. Instead, he’d gone to a local store and bought some bread and cheese. He sold sandwiches to the serious players.
Not all his enterprises were so innocent.
Once, his high school counselor allowed him to use the phone in his office. The counselor overheard Mark making the call — and ordering a case of Colt .45 through an older friend. The next call was to Sally Coulthurst.
“What is your son doing,?” the counselor asked.
“Oh,” Mark explained. “I was buying beer for some friends who are having a party.”
Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.”
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2019). All rights reserved.
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