Basking in Basque influence

I am reasonably sure that everyone knows that the Basques were and

are a fiercely independent race that inhabits the mountains between

France and Spain. The Basques fought both, surrendered to neither

and, from the news I read, are still fighting. At the risk of

oversimplification, I would say that the men are uniformly strong,

handsome and brave. The women invariably beautiful and strong willed.

So much for a peanut shell disposition of a great ethnic group.

As far as our area is concerned, the Basques originally came as

sheep herders who lived in funny little houses on wheels that all of

us youngsters were warned to stay out of.

The original Basque to enter Orange County history was a sheep

herder named Bastanchury. Eventually, tired of smelling dust from

herds of sheep, he settled down and planted an orange grove. From

that came the Bastanchury ranch, at one time the greatest spread of

citrus known to man -- thousands and thousands of acres of oranges

and lemons.

Then, the Great Depression hit, and overnight, the Bastanchury

holdings were decimated. If there is a degree below bankruptcy, the

Bastanchurys hit it -- and never totally recovered. Out of curiosity,

I looked in the phone book and there are only a couple of Bastanchury

listings, one for water, one for plumbing and one just a name, but

presumably all relatives of the original family.

While on the subject of Basques, I cannot conclude without a few

words about my favorite Basque family, the Oxararts, particularly Sam

and Charley. Sam had the capacity for doing the unusual, the

unexpected, the outlandish. Who else do you know who keeps a frozen

cat in the refrigerator?

While you search your memory, let me hasten to say that this was

not an early experiment in cryogenics. It was just that when Sam’s

cat died, he was uncertain just what he wanted to do about it. Have a

formal funeral with his oldest friend, Judge Robert Gardner,

officiating? Well, Judge Robert, nonconformist though he was,

rebelled at that one. If memory serves, he eventually took the frozen

corpse to the vet to dispose of.

As for Charley, he didn’t get in the same sort of scrapes as his

brother, but he had a sense of humor that could get him in trouble.

Charley had black hair and skin that never sunburned like us blonds.

No matter how long he was in the sun he just got a deeper shade of

tan. Well, one weekend we went down to Baja for some skin diving. On

the way back we stopped in a bar. Several hours later we headed for

the border. We pulled into the line of cars waiting to cross back

into the States. When we got to the front of the line, the border

guard hardly looked up.

“Where you from?” he asked.

“United States,” I replied.

He started to wave us through. Then he got a look at Charley--dark

skin, black hair. “Hold on,” he said. “Where you from?”

“Chihuahua,” said Charley.

It took a whole lot of explaining to convince the guard that

Charley was actually from Balboa, and I wasn’t smuggling illegals

over the border. But then, things were never dull with the Oxararts.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a

Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His column runs

Tuesdays.