City of Commerce – Dozens of friends came to this remote, dusty industrial community on a torrid Sunday morning to praise the inimitable Ken Ruben before they came to bury him in a private corner of Mt. Olive, a tiny, elderly Jewish cemetery.

They disclosed never-before told stories about Mr. Ruben’s arrival here in 1958 as a 16-year-old from his native Chicago, of his daily sallies into the community with his lookalike father, Maxwell, and for awhile, people thought they were brothers.

Scarcely north of five feet tall, both flirted shamelessly with 200 pounds, and for a few years, no one remembered seeing one without the other.

From Many Directions

Irreversibly devoted pals of Mr. Ruben from as far away as Sacramento, along with others who left early from the annual Winterail expo in Stockton, mostly men but some women, ranging from executives to entrepreneurs to workaday people, came to pay homage the most unique, most memorable figure to step through the doors of their lives.

All were bound by a singular, wetly passionate commitment to improving transportation, especially the rail kind, throughout California.  Unshakeable railroad aficionados, religiously sworn to their cause, they rallied in impressive unison on Mr. Ruben’s final day above the ground.

Typically, this fastidiously private man wrote the first words on the final page of his life out of view of his hundreds of friends.

Unable to reach the fanatically cell-phoning Mr. Ruben for more than two days, friend Chris Parker, borrowing help from the Culver City Police Dept., across the street from the longtime walkup Ruben apartment, entered with legal force.

“From outside, I heard Ken moaning,” Mr. Parker said.

His friend had been felled by a huge stroke that would paralyze him for his remaining 73 days.

Repeatedly yesterday, friends who had Mr. Ruben in common but did not necessarily know each other, remarked with a united sense of awe that they never had met such a person who was imperturbably happy, peacefully content with his lot in life, and equally discontented with the progress in improving the state of local and statewide rail.

Maximizing and Blending

Mr. Ruben reclines in a favorite position, on one of his beloved trains. Photos: Steve Grande

This seemingly undistinguished 72-year-old gentleman of  mammoth personality, mountainous moral values and ordinary natural gifts blended this mix into a stirring human toddy that carved a permanent favorable impression on hundreds of Californians from all strata.

Mr. Ruben, effectively retired for a decade, never quenched his thirst for working, for his desire for difference-making, his hunger for serving practical information to decision-makers in the rail world, and authentic friends in communities throughout California where a bus stopped, where a train at least paused.

Eulogists during Chabad Rabbi Yossie Gresisman’s traditional Jewish burial service concurred that Mr. Ruben maximally milked his talents more efficiently and influentially than anyone they have known.

The Way You Dress

Regardless of who he was passengering or dining with, no one doubted that he was the financially skinniest member of the group.

Neither did anyone, least of all his rabbi, doubt his candor.

Rabbi Greisman, a friend of Mr. Ruben for 15 years, was perhaps the only person in the entire cemetery formally dressed, black sport coat, contrasting slacks, tightly secured necktie – all on a 95-degree morning.

On purpose, Rabbi Greisman dressed so faultlessly formally in pure tribute to his friend. Mr. Ruben, he recalled, used to good-naturedly chastise him for dressing too casually.  As a final honor to his friend, before he was let down into the ground, the rabbi wanted Mr. Ruben to see him attired properly, the way Mr. Ruben always did, weather bedarned.

This is why Rabbi Greisman insisted on advancing the original time of the funeral from 12:30 to 10. He  knew how sweltering Closing Day would be. He wanted to complete the service before the scorching sun rose too high in the sky, from where Rabbi Greisman knew Mr. Ruben would be carefully watching from his new permanent home.

(To be continued)