ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict
Charley Hester was one of the better people.
The general public knew Charley Hester as a wealthy man who gave
lavishly to various charities and was seen in the paper with regularity
appearing at some charity social gathering.
Well, Charley was wealthy, and he did give lavishly to charities. But
he made that money he was giving away the hard way. He earned it.
I am putting together the story of Charley’s beginning from what he
told me in rather casual conversations, so I may not be exactly accurate
in some of the details.
As I remember, Charley started out in some Midwestern town working for
the local bus company as a bookkeeper. Somewhere along the line, he came
down with tuberculosis and spent some time in a hospital. The man in the
next bed was a professional gambler, and he and Charley spent their spare
time, of which they had a great deal, playing arithmetic games. Charley
already had a knack for mathematics, but when he came out of the
hospital, he was an expert.
Charley accumulated enough money to come to California and make some
investments. While he was a math whiz, he had a lot to learn in other
areas. As he said, the Santa Ana sharpies were waiting for him, sold him
a lemon, and he lost his hard-earned bankroll.
Charley moved to the beach and went to work for the Ward and
Harrington Lumber Company. From there, he branched out from selling
lumber to building houses, and at one time had the owners of 2,000 houses
making regular payments to him.
Charlie had a well-earned reputation for being scrupulously honest. He
never cut a corner on honesty. He did accumulate quite a lot of money and
did give lavishly to worthy charities. I accent the “worthy.” He wouldn’t
give a penny to those phony charities that are run for the profit of the
organizers.
As I said, Charley was a whiz at mathematics. I know. I used to play
golf with him at the old Irvine Coast Country Club, now the Newport Beach
Country Club. That club was heavy on betting. Each round of golf had
several gambling games going, and the average person would have to have a
computer to keep track. Charley kept all of those games in his head.
I couldn’t. I always let Charley tell me how much I had won -- which
was seldom -- or lost. The fact that I lost a lot more than I won is a
sad commentary on my golf game, not his integrity. He was Mr. Straight
Arrow. Unfortunately, there just aren’t too many people around who made
that much money without once cutting a corner or two.
He was a good friend, a good citizen and a good man. I miss him.
* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His
column runs Tuesdays.
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