A Man With a Mission : A Grandson Fills a Void With Sound as San Juan Capistrano’s Bell Ringer

Michael Gastelum is a soft-spoken man, quieter than the cooing pigeons and gurgling fountains that surround him.

But today the young bell ringer of Mission San Juan Capistrano intends to honor departed souls and arriving swallows by making a joyful racket.

And residents who share his powerful sense of place will be all ears.

Gastelum’s grandfather, Paul Arbiso, rang the mission bells for as long as anyone can recall. One year shy of 100, he welcomed prodigal swallows back to Capistrano for roughly 70 springs, until the bells tolled for him in November.

Now, the chore is changing hands, a turning point in a city where many claim some family tie to the mission and most have an internal tuning fork that tells them how the bells should sound.

But besides providing musical accompaniment for migrant flocks, the mission bells this year will be a call to meditation for Gastelum, 39, who not only loved his grandfather, but lived with him much of his adult life.

The two men were roommates, friends, co-workers, drinking buddies and fellow practitioners of a dying art, and the passing of one has left a profound void for the other--a void that can only be filled with sound.

“This year, when I’m ringing the bells, it’s all going to be in honor of him,” Gastelum said, standing in the shadows of the cracked iron bells with which his grandfather clanged out a lifelong symphony. “It’s only been four months, so he’s still around. Still here.”

“There are a lot of deep roots in this town,” said Tony Forster, president of the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society, whose great-great-grandfather once bought the mission at public auction in 1844 and owned it until Abraham Lincoln made him give it back to the Catholic Church. Seeing Gastelum take over as bell ringer, Forster said, refreshes an often forgotten concept.

“It means continuity,” he said.

Sitting on a weather-beaten bench among the fragrant mission rose gardens his grandfather tended and often serenaded, Gastelum said he knows the city will be listening closely today. His grandfather’s absence, he said, makes this year’s return of the gray-reddish swallow an occasion for reflection.

“In a way I’m sad,” he said. “But then I’m not. Because he lived such a long life. Sad, and then happy. New era, that’s what I call it.”

He was a little boy when he became aware of his grandfather’s role in the town’s eternal rhythms. When a resident died, when a resident was born, Arbiso rang the bells. When a couple married, Arbiso rang the bells. Every day at dawn and noon and dusk, Arbiso rang the bells.

Born across the street from the mission, Arbiso learned the job of bell ringer from a Native American man named Acu. Many believe that Acu was the mission’s first bell ringer, in the mid-1800s.

“My grandfather, he’s been ringing them all this time, till right now,” said Gastelum, the third bell ringer in the mission’s history. “We thought it would be nice to keep some blood in it, instead of just going out and putting an ad in the newspaper: ‘Need bell ringer.’ ”

Gastelum’s earliest and most cherished memories of the mission are quiet, sunlit ones. He recalls himself as a boy, carefully carrying two vanilla ice cream cones toward the crumbling buildings. One was for himself, one for his grandfather.

While the boy and the old man ate their ice cream on a bench in the mission gardens (“Just like we’re sitting here,” Gastelum said, a little wistfully), the old man would tell his favorite stories.

He told his grandson where the mission’s treasure is buried. Arbiso said that when he was a boy, he saw a man lurking in the mission. The man called Arbiso over and told him that he had just buried a stash of loot somewhere on the mission grounds. The man was going to Los Angeles for a week, he said, but if Arbiso watched over the buried treasure, they would both be rich when he returned.

The man never came back, and Arbiso never dug for the treasure, though he told his grandson he had an idea where it was. Gastelum hinted that the secret will die with him.

Arbiso often repeated the story of his right hand, which was missing two fingers. He enjoyed telling children that he once ate his fingers because he had no money for food.

But when Gastelum was older, he learned the truth. His grandfather lost part of his hand fighting in the Argonne Forest during World War I. Decades later, the U.S. government awarded Arbiso a Purple Heart in a small ceremony across the street from the mission.

Arbiso always showed great stamina. Not just the mission bell ringer, he also was the mission rose gardener. But in his 80s, he found it harder to finish the day without becoming winded.

Then, in 1978, his second wife, Carmelita, was shot to death by a family friend during an argument.

“After that happened,” Gastelum said, “we thought maybe he would go down.”

Gastelum decided to move in with his grandfather, to keep an eye on him. He cooked the old man’s meals, washed his clothes and talked with him about his beloved Dodgers.

Also, he joined Arbiso at the mission each day. Gastelum was not aware he was on his way to becoming the mission’s full-time caretaker, the job he holds today. He only knew that he enjoyed working alongside his grandfather.

In the hot afternoons, Arbiso would put down his hoe and say to his grandson, “Let’s go get a glass of wine.”

Together they would visit one of the many local bars where everyone knew Arbiso, the city’s official patriarch since 1952. Everyone called him Grandpa or “Mocho,” a reference to his missing fingers.

“I got married in 1980,” Gastelum said. “My first wife and I got married right here.”

He patted the wall of the mission’s tiny Serra Chapel, the oldest building still in use in California. He smiled. Then frowned.

“That (marriage) lasted a couple of years,” he said. “Then we were alone again. Just me and him.”

Over time, Arbiso taught Gastelum about the bells, whose use the mission began restricting to special occasions because of their advancing decay.

There was an art to it. Funerals were one sound, weddings another. The return of the swallows each March 19 always demanded a riotous, celebratory tone.

One day, about 15 years ago, Arbiso was hospitalized.

“We had a funeral that weekend,” Gastelum said. “He couldn’t be here to ring the bells for it, so I went to the hospital and asked him: ‘Well, I’ve got to ring the bells. They want them rung. So what do you do for a funeral?’ ”

Arbiso told Gastelum he already knew how to ring the bells, and Gastelum proved him right.

“I had goose bumps,” he said.

From then on, Gastelum assisted when his grandfather rang the bells, always studying the technique, never appreciating that his turn was coming. Their sessions were like the tutorials Gastelum now holds with his nephew, who may become bell ringer one day, unless Gastelum has a son.

“I’ll probably be here the rest of my life,” Gastelum said, smiling at the sun-polished mission grounds, which sit below the cemetery where his grandfather is buried.

Arbiso bequeathed more than his bell-ringing duties to Gastelum. In his will, he left Gastelum his house, where Gastelum sleeps each night in his grandfather’s bed.

Last week, before returning to the house, Gastelum felt like unwinding. It had been a full morning at the mission, busy with preparations for today’s return of the swallows. So Gastelum sought an hour of peace and a cold beer in one of his grandfather’s old haunts.

Seated near the door, the swallow-greeter greeted everyone who came and went. But one man rated a special hello.

Dennis Sommers, 43, is the great-grandson of Acu. When Sommers’ sister and cousin died, his dear friend “Mocho” sounded the bells slowly, dolefully, to signal their passing.

“It’s good that it stays in the family,” Sommers said. “When I see Mike ringing the bells, it’s going to be like both of them out there. . . . Anyone who spiritually knows Mocho, they’ll hear Mike. But they’ll see Mocho.”

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Swallows Celebration

Swallows Day activities are today at San Juan Capistrano. Food and refreshments as well as gifts, souvenirs and crafts will be available.

* Gates open: 7 a.m.

* Festivities: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

* Gates close: 5 p.m.

* Admission: Adults, $4; seniors 60 and older and children under 12, $3

* Parking: On nearby streets, such as El Camino Real