Introduction
A little about grandfather,
Michael’s first memories, and Andy Rooney.
Grandfather teaches Michael about business from a muddy reservoir that Al Bourne used to water his lemons and oranges, when he wasn’t running Singer Sewing Machine. While playing in the fields around the reservoir, Michael played on the strings of Mr Bourne’s heart, which would lead to Michael obtaining Al Bourne’s farm and filling the reservoir with a storied 7 ½ storied Castle of Junk.
As grandfather filled kid Michael's head with stories
and adages, Michael moved into manhood filled with innocent childhood
beliefs. After growing into a hunk of a
man, Michael Clark Rubel would, in the middle of adult conversation, reach back
into his memory, recall grandfather's
words, and ask for his black book into
which his wrong handed curl would chisel grandfather's adages for life. All those historical left-handed scribbles
are memorialized in Chapter 2.
Odo Stade was conscripted to ride with Pancho Via and rode away with his boots after the massacre. Stanley Baird shook milkshake maker Ray Kroc and started the Golden Arches from behind a sink -- after beating the Kroc at his own bun filling nickel and dime game.
Escaping
mom's parties meant escaping Sally Rand, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Joe Penner…
MCR's life was ever safest and preferred aside his dogs' paws, as
With nine cats ruling at home, she rode her broom over all our Castle lives. She was the craggy old witch we all loved, and she magically knew -- and Shrieked, especially in her newspaper -- everything going on in our night lives.
There are few better highs than building a sky-high castle of junk in an upscale town. Long before "recycling" was in, neighbors piled bags of bottles, telephone companies left their leftover telephone poles, torn out tunnel lumber was scavenged from the Feather River Water Project, collapsed freeway beams were recycled into Castle walls, and found river bed rocks were borrowed from San Gabriel Canyon for our definition of eternity.
The flood did come, Skipper did blow up the engine, the windmill missed the mattresses, he picked the Wells Fargo safe, the Marine tank was stolen, and some of Skipper's rights and wrongs stand and fall all around here.
"Do you understand, 'My life is in your hands?'" MCR repeated to his skinny young helper wheeling rocks 50' high on Rubelia's rag-tag scaffolds. "How blessed we were," he would often say in looking back on all the Rubelian work where "Safety was third."
About
golden nuggets, Harry Reasoner, fan dancers, Mrs. Graham, cliffhanging in
Pharmers fly with peacocks, grade schoolers, Dating Games, broken windows, and broken drills. Everyone, especially Pharmers, love animals, kids, dates, breaking and fixing stuff. Rubelia supplied those opportunities in quixotic abundance.
Little Uncle Ted outfoxes Bradley's Washington Post, uses his Acme Thunderer to pick up MCR's dirty underwear somewhere in Mexico, and is left on desert ground reeling from an over-explosion of cross country methane.
He had seen so much of the world. Seen and played so many good pranks. Seen and done so much with so little. It was almost like he had been immaculately conceived, yet he lightly shuffled off his loss of sight as his "Immaculate Deception."
By his sixth inning, he no longer was bailed from Egyptian dungeons to scrub barnacles and toilets. Now, it wasn't a cargo freighter but Holland Cruise Lines calling to reject his ticket purchase. Instead, the Michael Clarke Rubel they had heard about, and Kia, were comped with a stateroom, and requested they nightly dine with the captain.
Michael's
world travels and fantasized real world work moved his civics 360°. From
He never got much beyond, “I’m Mike. I build castles… I’m 9…" That's why school kids always had Mykee's soft spot and a way to tour the Castle when others could not get by Rubelia's two-ton gate or its barbed walls.
Every day he looked and acted like Santa Claus, and even had his own toy making shops for kids and grown-ups. Without him, Christmases aren't the same for all the kids and supposed grown-ups that passed through Rubelia's gates.
“Please move over! You’re standing on my stomach,” spooked the well-dressed lady but only made Crazy Bill and the Rubelians chuckle in the cemetery.
God knows the world is
filled with Peter Principal practioners.
Rubelia had a variety of ways to deal with them. So, some stories of this Rubelian author
scrimmaging with Peter Principalers fall here.