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.