Robert Gardner -- THE VERDICT

I keep writing about the adventures and misadventures of Sam Oxarart and

I forget I’m writing about a time when this town was much smaller and

everyone knew everyone else.For those who may not know, the Oxarart

family was interesting.

They were Basques and part of the Bastanchury family, also Basque, by

marriage. The original Bastanchury, a sheepherder, started a citrus ranch

in the hills behind Fullerton, which finally became the largest citrus

ranch in the country. The original Bastanchury married an Oxarart, and

the two families lived in luxury on the Bastanchury ranch. Mrs. Oxarart

once told me it was nothing out of the ordinary to have 30 people for

dinner while they lived on the ranch.

But then came the Great Depression and the ranch went bust. The Oxararts

moved to Balboa -- Mr. and Mrs Oxarart and three sons, Charlie, Sam and

Vic.

With the change in family fortunes, Mrs. Oxarart got a job with one of

those government entities that sprung from the Depression. Unlike his

wife, Mr. Oxarart stayed home and devoted himself to endless jigsaw

puzzles. He had never worked and saw no reason to start even in the face

of crisis, particularly since his wife had a job.

His life reminds me of what Lionel Barrymore said about his brother John,

who was in San Francisco during the earthquake worked the Army during the

cleanup. Lionel told it this way: “It took an earthquake to get my

brother out of bed and the United States Army to get him to work.”

And so it was with Mr. Oxarart. It took a world war to put him to work.

When World War II broke out, he reluctantly left his puzzles and went to

work as a civilian at the El Toro Marine Corps base.

His attitude about work was shared by his son Charlie, whom I knew rather

casually. We had played water polo against each other in high school, and

for some reason I never fully understood, Charlie moved in with me one

summer.

I was living in a room in the Balboa Apartments at the corner of Main

Street and the bayfront, working seven 10-hour days a week to make enough

money to carry me through college for the next year.

I have no recollection of inviting Charlie to live with me, but there he

was, even though I couldn’t really afford a guest.

When the summer was over, and I went back to USC, Charlie moved in with a

Santa Ana dentist and his two attractive daughters. The next summer, he

couldn’t move in with me because I was living with Hersh Teeter, the

lifeguard captain, and a couple of other guys, and there wasn’t any room.

So Charlie moved in with a family that ran the lumberyard. And had two

attractive daughters.

Looking back, I can’t remember him ever having a job during those years.

Like his Dad, it also took World War II for him to get a job. He latched

on with Douglas, a job he held until his death many years later.

Back when I knew the Oxararts, Vic, the youngest of the sons, was just a

kid. So it fell on Sam to be the only man in his family who always had a

job.

He worked in a laundry, then with the labor gang putting the sea wall

around Balboa Island, and also as a bartender at Gus Tamplis’ bar in

Balboa. During the war, he also went to work at Douglas. After the war,

he worked for Alex Oser, the wealthy junkman who lived on Lido Isle.

Sam finally branched out on his own in the airplane parts business and

did quite well. He was a responsible, hard-working man. But somehow, he

seemed to constantly be in the wrong place at the wrong time -- hence the

many Sam Oxarart stories.

Oh, yes. After I became a Superior Court judge, I was able to get Mr.

Oxarart the perfect job. He was appointed the official Basque court

interpreter. He was qualified, since he spoke Basque fluently, and it met

his personal attitude toward gainful employment -- There was not a single

case during his tenure in which a Basque interpreter was required.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.