For more than 45 years, Garry “Bubbleman” Golightly has been a fixture across Seattle parks and community events, bringing giant bubbles and laughter to children free of charge, until thieves cleaned out the van that carried his life’s work.
Now the 72-year-old entertainer is trying to rebuild from scratch. Golightly, best known for his regular appearances at Carkeek Park, says his 20-year-old Honda Odyssey was stolen earlier this year outside the QFC on Holman Road in Seattle. Police eventually recovered the vehicle, but the thieves had already stripped it of nearly everything inside. Gone were decades of handmade bubble equipment, custom props, tools, and one-of-a-kind creations he spent years building by hand.
“It’s a terrible loss,” Golightly said. “It was just a lot of work I put into these things. You can’t find them all over again. Some of them took me months to create.”…