Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about the interesting ways current islanders came to end up on Vashon and how being on the island has changed the course of their lives.

The decision to move is usually one met with excitement mixed with dread, fear of the unknown and the promise of a chance to start anew. Usually planned out for at least months, if not years, moving to a new city, state or country is not something most take lightly, but for one islander, the decision to move was anything but planned.

For Chris Austin, a jack-of-all-trades type of guy who has been living on-island for nearly five years and currently lends his voice and humor to the Voice of Vashon, his Mostly True History book series and new Mostly True Vashon Tours company, becoming an islander all started with a call to house-sit.

“My cousin is a commercial pilot in Vietnam and he and his family were going to move there. They were closing the house down, his kids were going to go to school over there,” he said recalling the November 2010 phone call from his cousin. “I’d been up to visit him and see the island in the most beautiful summers, but that was it.”

At the time of the call, Austin had just finished a cross-country bike ride from Delaware to Huntington Beach, California, and was “kind of plotting” his next move which “wasn’t necessarily Vashon,” he said.

Needless to say, Vashon became the next move.

“It was perfect timing. It was January 1, 2011. The way it worked was they (his cousin’s family) flew out to Vietnam on like Dec. 31 and left their van at the airport. I flew in the next day, and they hid the keys. I grabbed them and drove back to Vashon. I got back to a dark house and an angry cat.”

He said the transition to the Northwest’s gray and short winter days was completely unexpected.

“I had never lived in the Northwest; I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

He tapped into his comedic talent and began writing funny stories about his life and the everyday occurrences that can be humorous. The book is called “The Mostly True History of a Typical Guy on Vashon.”

“It was a bucket list thing,” he said.

About a month after moving to Vashon, he saw an ad in The Beachcomber to be a carrier. He seized the opportunity and delivered newspapers throughout downtown and onto Westside Highway by bicycle.

“There would be snow on the ground, and sometimes it would take me about four hours. I’d be back in town around 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, and it was a ghost town. It’s like I was waiting for zombies to come out,” he said with a laugh.

He was promoted to The Beachcomber’s circulation manager in March 2011, where he stayed until earlier this year and would occasionally write humor columns — which earned him a first-place Washington Newspaper Publisher’s Award in 2015 — and humorous ads for the Vashon Heritage Museum.

“I learned so much going into (the history museum) on the weekends. I would rummage through archives and get a funny article and really enjoyed it,” he said.

His cousin and family came back to Vashon in June 2013 and, finding he had become somewhat settled on the island, he stuck around. He branched out and became involved with the Voice of Vashon and continued diving into Vashon history, one of his passions, along with bike riding and “making people laugh.” The former dentist, software engineer and defense contractor turned radio host, author and tour guide said he enjoys how those who live here find a way to “cobble together a career.”

“With dentistry, I made money, but hated the job; the software company I started, I didn’t make any money, but I loved it,” he said before speaking about his current venture that makes him a tour guide through the sometimes weird history of Vashon. “I love history, I love teaching and making it fun. Like a lot of people on Vashon … I’ve cobbled together this thing I wanted to do: Make people laugh and make it fun and history.”

His theory for why so many islanders put together careers is because Vashon’s status as a true island.

“It’s such a barrier to get off the island, and if you can do something here and stay, then that’s better than commuting,” he said.

When Austin regaled his origin story to Voice of Vashon audiences last Thursday on Jeff and Cindy Hoyt’s Morning Scramble show, there was an abundance of cat jokes.

“So cat-sitting is what brought you to the island?” Cindy asked. “That’s not one I’ve heard before: I came to sit a cat and I just never left.”