A Memory of My Brother’s Memoir, by Chris Rubel
Micheal Rubel, my younger brother by seven years, died in October of 2007. I miss him! Sometimes, sitting at his side on his veranda, overlooking his Castle’s courtyard, we smoked pipes, sipped wine, and he relaxed enough to tell me stories. One of these stories has surfaced this week, as I fixed my small garden water wheel. This is a memory of his memoir, along with my editing to make the story work for any reader.
Water wheels have long interested me. I once built a garden water wheel, labeling each bucket with a human emotion, blessing, and/or predicament. Picture a water wheel. As it turns, a bucket fills with water and weight. As one labeled bucket descends into the pond, another is filling with cascading water. As Despair is filled and turns the wheel, an opposite, Faith, ascends. As Eros is filled, turning the wheel, Isolation ascends. Agape fills, descending down into the pond, Atheism rises. Charity is filling, Stinginess ascends. And so it goes.
Michael’s stuck water wheel story has stuck with me. It is so like him to do what he did in Colombia on one of his trips around the world, probably his third or fourth trip. I don’t know where in Colombia this happened, but he had been in a small village, accepting the hospitality of some local people, not too far from Bogota. This is the story he told to me, as best I can recall.
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After several days in a mountain Colombian village, many years ago, Michael went hiking, exploring. He told me he had followed a trail along a small river up into the hills surrounding the village. Rounding a forested turn in the trail he discovered a huge water wheel and a grist or millhouse, covered with vines. It was obvious to Mike that this millhouse had been long abandoned. When he got to the water wheel, he realized the river had been dammed in such a way that it no longer poured over the wheel. The wheel was immense. (Later, using a one-hundred foot tape measure with help, the wheel measured fifty-four feet in diameter.) He tried to budge the stuck wheel, to no avail. Muscling open a door in the millhouse, he studied the grinding machinery, the main shaft, gears, and the dirt and vegetation covered grinding stones.
Hiking back to the village, the challenge of fixing the water wheel and gristmill became a mental plan. It must have been that part of Michael that envisioned and built his Castle (On line, one can Google “Rubel Castle” and see the manifestation of his imagination, fed by his genius, compulsive industry, and his ability to gather volunteers.) As he walked toward his guest home, he noticed lots of children, obviously bored, playing games, and loitering about with little to do.
Michael found a young fellow who knew English and he told his new friend about his discovery of the water wheel and his plan to get it working. His Colombian friend interpreted his plan. Most everyone in town knew of the old, abandoned mill. Together, late that afternoon, they rounded up about twenty kids who knew about the abandoned millhouse. They were intrigued with the project and the nutty American’s idea, but skeptical. Even though doubtful it could be fixed, they volunteered to follow the American stranger the next morning to do hard work, to make the artifact a turning water wheel.
Early the next morning, with parental permission, their kids followed Michael, a friendly new presence in their midst. The volunteer kids took tools and hiked up the trail to their project. They packed lunches, brought shovels, axes, hammers, crow bars, two buckets of grease, etc., enough tools to do what was ahead of them.
The troop arrived at the site. Michael divided the kids into project groups. One group had the job of removing the water dam, so the water would flow over the wheel once again. Another group was dispatched to clean up the mess inside the millhouse. A couple of kids had the messiest job of greasing the main shaft, bushings, and gears. A couple of kids greased the door hinges, tapped on them, and made them open and close easily. Michael had them tap rhythmically on the working parts, to help loosen them. By and by, near early afternoon, after lunch, Michael asked for volunteers to climb upon the wheel and dance. The kids were excited and most all of them wanted to do this. But, Mike only allowed a few of the larger ones to endanger themselves climbing on the wheel. By day’s end, the water splashed over the still frozen wheel and they all hiked home, anticipating day two of the project.
New volunteers joined the original troop the next early morning. When they got to the millhouse, water splashing plentifully over the wheel during the night, Michael directed his chosen kids to climb onto the wheel and start jumping. They jumped in an alternate rhythm, and gradually the wheel began to turn, which delighted everyone. Several kids slipped off into the shallow pond at the bottom, but they easily climbed out of the water and were cheered on by their friends. By the end of the second afternoon, the wheel turned on its own by the weight of the cascading water. The mechanism inside the millhouse worked noisily, when the clutch was engaged. Michael was the most delighted of all of them.
He praised them and they hiked back to the village, very excited about going back on day three.
The family hosting Michael became enthused about the project. They gathered parents and curious friends to join them at the millhouse on the morning of day three. The adults brought bountiful food for a picnic and hiked with exuberance the half hour to the site. Arriving, the water wheel turned slowly. Entering the millhouse, they watched the grinding machinery doing its job well. It was a joy to behold. Everyone celebrated. The picnic was spread out for all. The water wheel and millhouse were an instant attraction for everyone, even though there was no utility value these days, since the larger wheat farms had disappeared.
During the picnic, Michael watched everyone almost bewitched by the turning wheel. Turn, turn, turn; splash, splash, splash. Inside the millhouse the great stones ground nothing, but they would do the job if the wheat farmers ever began to produce stone ground flour. The parents and kids cheered Michael, the crazy American, el Americano loco. He told me he cheered the kids, and, via his interpreter, thanked them for being such hard-working and clever children.
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There’s the story as best I can recall. No way to verify any of it, but knowing my young brother and his ability to get youngsters to do the improbable tasks of building a Castle, the story is plausible. I choose to believe my memory of his memoir tale. He was in Colombia only a short time, eager to leave because of the crime, corruption, and violence. But, as was the case wherever his travels took him, he loved the people. Fixing the abandoned, stuck water wheel was some kind of victory for him and he left the village as a celebrated American loco hero of sorts.
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