Joseph Charles -- Berkeley's 'Waving Man'

Old age claimed Berkeley's legendary "Waving Man" yesterday morning.

Joseph Charles, 91, was a humble man with a large heart. He won national fame and affection for the simple act of waving to the passing traffic from the front of his house every morning for 30 years.

With a smile as bright as the yellow gloves that became his trademark, he often called out a cheerful "Keep smiling!" and "Have a GOOD day!" to the commute traffic on busy Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

"He has brought a lot of joy to people," Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean said on the occasion of his 85th birthday, when he stepped out of retirement for a brief comeback. She issued a proclamation in his honor.

That was the same occasion when the national news digest in USA Today devoted one of its two items from California to Mr. Charles. In 1991, a year before Mr. Charles retired, Chronicle staff writer Carl Nolte called him "one of the Bay Area's best known moving landmarks."

In his 25th year of waving, a headline in People magazine proclaimed: "Joseph Charles, Long May He Wave, Spreads Joy in Berkeley."

He was featured on national television by Walter Cronkite and Charles Kuralt, among others. A city tennis court was named after him, and his gloves are now housed at the Berkeley History Center.

"I love people," he once explained to The Chronicle, "and people showed me they loved me, too."

Martin Snapp, a columnist for the Berkeley Voice and Mr. Charles's unofficial historian, called him "the most beloved man in Berkeley."

"He made a lot of people happy," said Snapp, who belonged to a circle of supportive friends, including Alameda County Superior Court Judge Julie Conger,

who visited Mr. Charles and sang carols beneath his window every Christmas Eve.

Mr. Charles left his hometown of Lake Charles, La., to come to the Bay Area during the African American migration, drawn by work in the shipyards during World War II, according to Snapp. He worked at the Oakland Naval Supply Center from 1942 to 1971.

As a young man, he won acclaim as a talented first baseman for the Lake Charles Black Yankees, part of the negro leagues. He claimed he was once struck out by Satchel Paige.

Mr. Charles outlived his wife and two children, as well as two personal physicians. He is survived by six grandchildren.

Funeral services are pending.