Under the Stars Released!

I am pleased to announce that my latest book, Under the Stars, is available now by going to the following link:  https://store.bookbaby.com/book/under-the-stars

Synopsis: Family gatherings at the cottage by the lake promise sweet memories every August. But this year will be different since the family suffered Grandpa's death last April. When the older child learns that Dad camped out on an island in the lake when he was a boy, the desire to do the same grows. In my latest story, Under the Stars, this is where the adventure begins and the process of healing continues.

Under the Stars will also be available on Amazon beginning July 29. It can be pre-ordered at:

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Stars-James-Madden/dp/0984311955/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=under+the+stars&qid=1654223008&s=books&sr=1-17

My other books, An Unknown Soldier, A Quaker Cupboard and Sprung from the Soil are available on Amazon. An Unknown Soldier is also available at Barnes and Noble. All four books can be purchased by going to my website www.davidjamesmadden.com/publications

The Source of Inspiration

I read once how Robert Frost was up an entire night in June, 1922, writing his long poem “New Hampshire.” When morning came, he got up and went outside to see the sunrise and to breathe in the fresh air. Suddenly, the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” came to his mind in a rush, and he hurried to write it down before the words vanished. Think of that, the words had come to him as though from someplace other than his conscious mind. I believe this is where the idea of a muse comes from, those mythological creatures who were the source of inspiration for somebody engaged in the creative arts. As Steven Pressfield, the author of historical fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays has said:

When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight.

 While I was writing my novel, An Unknown Soldier, I often had the sense it was being given to me by a muse, a deeper part of myself that I was mostly not conscious of. At times, an idea for a paragraph or a chapter came to me almost fully developed. Other times, I had to labor for several days to find the right word or combination of words. And I learned to quickly write down the gift once it was given, even if it was the middle of the night. More than once, a line or a word I thought I would remember until I got to my computer or a piece of paper had been lost when I awakened in the morning. I came to realize a muse doesn’t like to be ignored; her gifts must be acknowledged the moment they are offered.

David James Madden

Winter Light

Winter Roses by Teresa Duke

Think how winter light will enter a room

To suffuse the air with limpid brightness.

On an ebony piano, roses bloom

in a crystal vase where the sun's whiteness

falls upon angles of prismed glass

to scatter the spectrum's varied color

throughout the room and to thereby surpass

the sun's primal beauty, basic and pure.

So it is when God's light enters a heart:

as there's no reflection without a source,

Whatever we create exists as part

Of the divine illuminating force,

For only when that light pierces the soul,

Can we see to make pieces from the whole.

 David James Madden

This Diminished Season

So little now is left of the glory

of maple and birch with colors ablaze,

seldom now are seen the migratory

geese through the dimming light of evening’s haze

as they journey south in their cadenced flight.

Now the harvest fields lie fallow and still

beneath thin rays of late November light

that can scarcely disperse the morning's chill.

What I say of this diminished season

when color, music, and warm days retreat

will, perhaps, seem to defy all reason

for lovers of spring flowers, summer heat,

but in the barren meadow, leafless tree

beauty lingers for those looking to see.

David James Madden

Image: November Morning by Terry Chandler from The Gallery @BarrPhotographics

https://barrphotographics.com

An Important Message to Share

Last spring, my niece Kate asked me to perform the ring ceremony in her October wedding. She also asked that I speak “a few words” about love. I told her that since I’m not a minister, I wouldn’t be able to pronounce her and Nate man and wife. Kate said that Nate’s uncle was a minister and would say the “By the power vested in me by God and man...” part of the ceremony. But since Nate’s church didn’t include an exchange of rings in their wedding services, she wanted me to do that. With all that now understood, I agreed to be in the ceremony.

I wrote the first draft on a hot July afternoon and returned to it over the next few months to revise it. This process included sharing it with some people, including Kate and Nate, who said they loved it. A week or so before the big day, I found out there would be about 180 people in attendance. It’s a strange thing, but when I had thought it would be around 50 or so, I was fine. If the gathering were to be 100 people, I would have still been okay. What was there about a larger audience that caused me to be more anxious than a smaller one would have?

The wedding was being held at the Publick House in Sturbridge, MA. A chance of showers had been forecast for the day earlier in the week, but it was a beautiful day, warm for late October. By the time we arrived an hour before the ceremony, I could feel butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I reminded myself I had an important message to share with everyone. I had written my words with care. Deep down beneath the butterflies, I knew everything would go as I hoped it would.

Nate's uncle finished his remarks and introduced me. I stood and walked up to the microphone. I looked at Kate and Nate and then out across at all those who had gathered. I took a breath and began to speak the words I had practiced for the past few weeks. This is part of what I said:

"There have been many songs written about love. One comes from a movie titled 'Love is A Many Splendored Thing.' It was released in 1955, so many of you may not have heard of this song, but it speaks to us in ways that are still true today:

'Love is a many splendored thing

It's the April rose that only grows in the early Spring

Love is nature's way of giving a reason to be living

The golden crown that makes a man a king.'

Today, sixty-six years later, we would say love can and does grow in any season, not just early spring.

Since love is a many splendored thing, it finds many ways to make itself known to us. There is the love of and for God, the love we have for nature and all the creatures who inhabit the natural world with us. There is the love between parent and child, between brothers and sisters, between friends, both two and four legged.  There is another presence of love among us today, not just from those whose eyes we can now look into and whose hands we can this moment hold, but also the love we keep in our hearts and always will for those who have gone from our physical presence and who remain with us in spirit.

Today is the day we celebrate the love Nate and Kate have for each other. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote one of the loveliest songs ever about love such as theirs in the musical “South Pacific.” 

“Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger
You may see a stranger across a crowded room
And somehow you know, you'll know even then
That somewhere you'll see her again and again.”

Sometimes, when we see a stranger across a crowded room or wherever we are when our eyes first meet, it just so happens that what the eyes have seen is made known to the heart. And sometimes love then begins to grow in the heart and continues to flourish as it did for Kate and Nate until a day like this arrives when love takes on a deeper level of commitment…"

David James Madden

A Field in October

Under the light of a lemon drop moon

the field lay quiet in autumn sleep,

in slumber that was cold, soundless, and deep

like winter sleep coming all too soon.

But October's sun still hints of July,

beneath its rising warmth the frost retreats,

the bee awakes to search about for sweets,

the dappled spider weaves to catch the fly.

When children arrive at the field to look

at the pumpkins scattered about the ground,

they'll first try to find one perfectly round,

then depart happy with the ones they took,

knowing that jack o' lanterns will be seen

glowing in their windows on Halloween.

David James Madden

Some Very Good Teachers

"A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, 'I can’t operate—that boy is my son!'"

I first heard that riddle in the 1970’s when I was in my twenties. I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out at first. When I read it to some of my sixth-grade classes during the 1980’s, nobody could solve it either, so I had to give them the answer. When I told it to a class of sixth graders sometime in the first decade of the 21st century, several hands shot up with the correct answer in a few seconds. It was no longer unheard of that a woman could be a surgeon. Views on gender equality had changed for many people, including my own. But as is the case with most significant changes, this required a process that took some time.

I attended Bennett Junior High School in Manchester CT during the 1960's. Back then, boys learned woodworking and electricity in shop classes. Girls learned sewing and cooking skills in home economics. I never stopped to wonder why our schedules were arranged this way. I also never heard a boy say he’d rather learn to bake brownies or a girl say she preferred to build a bookcase. At Manchester High School during this time, being on the cross country, track and swim teams were for boys only. Boys were told they had an innate ability in science, while girls were given the message they were more likely to succeed in reading poetry and writing prose. All that was as much a part of the world I grew up in as leaves turning color in fall and flowers growing in spring.

A few years after I graduated from Manchester High in 1967, I drove to the school track one autumn afternoon to get ready for Manchester’s Thanksgiving Day Road Race. As I got out of the car, I saw, to my surprise, a group of high school girls running wind sprints on the track. I was also surprised about a month later when a woman ran past me with long, powerful strides just before the Highland Street hill on the day of the road race. It now seems peculiar how much it startled me on those occasions when I saw how strongwomen runners are. However, this was still a time when many males, including me, had been led to believe that running more than a mile or so was a feat only we could participate in. Anything more than that had always been considered too strenuous for women. The world I had grown up in was beginning to change, but like many others, I hadn't caught up with it yet.

I caught up soon enough when I saw there were lots of women that I couldn’t keep up within road races. Since those at first humbling experiences, I've come to learn that everyone deserves the chance to follow their dreams whether they have a Y chromosome or not. It’s not a comfortable feeling to think there was once a time when I didn't grasp something as obvious as that. But then, I’ve been fortunate since those days. After I graduated, I began to receive an ongoing education from some very good teachers, starting with those girls sprinting around the track and the woman getting farther ahead of me with every step on Highland Street.

David James Madden

A Step I Wasn't Ready For

When I was young, I accepted the rules given to me by my parents, teachers, and the adults in my church. Yet, there were times when I didn’t like what I was being told to do. I remember the night before school began for my senior year at Manchester High. There was going to be a show about the Green Bay Packers that I wanted to watch. I had been able to stay up late and watch television shows all summer, but now my mother said I had to go to bed. I complained, but still got up from my chair and marched upstairs, fuming to myself about the injustice of a return to school nights. This was the era of “Leave it to Beaver” and like Theodore and his brother Wally, I did as my parents directed.

There were two main reasons why I didn’t rebel in an obvious manner. First, there wasn’t a lot to rebel against. By and large, my parents were fair to me and my siblings. There were no unreasonable requirements or unjust punishments handed out. During the summer, I was free to ride my bike, play with friends, walk to Globe Hollow for an afternoon of swimming. There were rules about getting a full night's sleep on school nights and being at school on time. Supper was at an appointed time throughout the year. But little or nothing of rules such as these went against my developing sense of justice. I realized the end of vacation meant getting to bed earlier, even if there was a TV show on the Packers I wanted to watch. If anyone had asked me, I would have admitted this was the right thing to do. After all, my first day of school included cross country practice and I wanted to make the varsity. I knew the rules I had to follow were in my best interests even if I didn't want to admit it.

The other reason I didn’t rebel had to do with my submissive nature as a child and adolescent. It frightened me when grownups got angry. I wanted to stay on their good side. It was easier for me to go along with what they told me to do. Don’t bring unnecessary attention upon yourself might have been my motto. But despite my best efforts, that wasn't always possible.

One summer day, my father told me to be sure to have my paper route covered while we all went away on vacation. A few days before we were to leave, Dad yelled at me when he found out that I hadn't yet done this. I went up to my room, sat at my desk and soon my eyes filled with tears. I don’t remember exactly what the reason was for not following Dad's instructions. It seems to me now that I was still waiting to hear from a kid I had asked to substitute for me. I know it wouldn't have been like me to ignore something important when it came to my paper route. But I didn't speak up for myself and explain what was happening. Instead, I walked away without a word.

A few minutes later, Dad came to my room and when he saw I was crying, he said over and over, “Please don’t cry." He sat down on the bed next to my desk, took my hand in his, pressed it against his forehead and said he was sorry he got mad at me. I was pretty sure he was crying too and this bewildered and alarmed me. I had never intended to disobey my dad, but neither had I done what he expected me to do.

It’s important for young people to follow reasonable directions such as those my father gave me. At the same time, it might have been better for me to rebel a little and speak up right away when he got angry with me. Maybe it would have been better if I had, but being direct with adults was a step I wasn't ready for at the age of 13.

David James Madden

A Sense of Calmness

Days and weeks can pass without my giving a thought to the fact that I am constantly breathing. But occasionally I become conscious of my respiratory system on the job working for me. It’s a good feeling to be aware of having the ability to breathe in deeply. At such moments, I am filling myself not only with oxygen but also with gratitude for being alive and healthy.

There is scientific evidence that shows deep breathing is one of the best ways there is to deal with stress. While breathing in deeply from the diaphragm, inhale through the nose for four counts, hold the breath for four counts, breathe out deeply through the mouth for four counts, pause for four counts, repeat four times. Inhaling through the nose is especially important since nitrous oxide is inhaled with every breath. This is a free and natural way to generate tranquility.

Being aware of nature can also bring about peace of mind. Snow falling as evening comes on, thunder rumbling in the distance on a hot summer afternoon, waves breaking rhythmically on the shore, rain pattering on the window at night are all experiences that I have found to be soothing. In such moments, I am not engaged in anything the world might consider productive; all I am doing is being conscious of what is happening around me. By simply being present in the moment, I am open to what life is bringing me. For all too short a time, I am not concerned with what I have or haven’t done in the past, with what I want or need to do in the present, with what might or might not happen in the future. All that matters is right now.

Thích Nhat Hạnh has said, “Life is available only in the present moment.” When I remember to breathe mindfully and/or observe nature with my full attention, I have found this is also true for attaining a sense of calmness.

 David James Madden

Small Opportunities for Gratitude

The Pliny Freeman Farm - Old Sturbridge Village

I first visited Old Sturbridge Village in November 1959 with my fifth-grade class from Lincoln School in Manchester, CT. I was nine years old. As I toured the Pliny Freeman Farm, the Fitch House, the Salem Towne mansion, and other buildings, I scanned the drawings, portraits and needlework created by people who lived long before me. I examined the tools, machines, and instruments used to do the daily work of New Englanders who had lived over a century before I was born. On that raw autumn day, it seemed to me that the people of that time lived in another world, one that no longer existed.

In some ways, of course, I was right. The world was a very different place in the 1950’s compared to the 1840’s. But as I have gone through life, I have come to feel a growing connection between myself and the people portrayed at Old Sturbridge Village. They were different from me in many ways, but ultimately, we are just the same. More and more as the years pass, I see them as kith and kin with whom I will someday be united. Whether I will be conscious of their presence or they of mine is shrouded in mystery, but aware of each other or not, I know someday I’ll join them. 

Visiting an historical museum like Old Sturbridge Village can be seen, among many other things, as a reminder that time not only runs out eventually for everyone else; it will someday for me too. This may sound like a dismal, pessimistic thought, but it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps it could be seen as a way of accepting life in its totality, as a holistic experience with a beginning, a middle and, what we often prefer not to consider, an end. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go through life with the thought of “time's wingèd chariot hurrying near” constantly on my mind. But, taken in moderation, it could serve to motivate me into remembering from time to time that I am alive right now. What a strange thing to say! Of course I’m still alive! Why would I have to remember that? Yes, but to what extent am I living with an awareness of the small opportunities for gratitude present to me every second of the day? Too often I’m not as grateful as I could be as this or that part of life is happening around or within me. Remembering that occasions for being thankful are finite might just spur me into being more mindful of them. It’s easy enough to do; such moments are always close at hand. They always have been throughout the living of all our days.

David James Madden

Something in the Middle of the Road

from the Manchester (CT) Evening Herald, Tuesday, June 18, 1963

One muggy, overcast Saturday afternoon in June I was delivering the Manchester Evening Herald on Spruce Street. When I crossed the street in front of the Presbyterian Church, I noticed something in the middle of the road. I looked at it more closely and saw it was a wallet, one so small I thought at first glance it was a child’s toy. I picked it up and when I got back to my bicycle, opened it and looked through it. To my surprise, I saw a twenty-dollar bill, then another, and another. Then I came upon a hundred-dollar bill, then another, and another. When I counted all the money, I realized I was holding $500 in my hand. That would be a lot of money today, but it was 1963, a time when that much money was enough to buy a decent used car, among other things a 13 year old boy might want to consider owning someday.

There were about a half dozen papers that remained in my basket for the customers between the church and East Center Street. But instead of delivering their papers, I hopped on my bike and headed back down Spruce Street toward the address I had found in the wallet. I got to the house and knocked on the door several times but there was no answer. I finally walked away not quite sure what I should do next. Suddenly a car turned abruptly into the driveway, and I saw a woman staring angrily at my bike blocking her way. She looked at me with a scowl that quickly changed into an expression of astonishment when she saw the wallet I was carrying. She jumped out of her car and ran toward me asking me where I had found it. I told her what had happened, and she explained to me that she had placed the wallet on top of the car when she had helped her son get in his seat and then had forgotten it. She thanked me over and over and took some money out of the wallet to give me. She promised she would call my parents to tell them what an honest boy they were raising and would call the Herald to tell them what I had done. She also promised she would soon give me more money as a reward, but I told her that wouldn’t be necessary. Perhaps that’s the reason why she never gave me more than the four dollars she handed to me that day in her driveway. I thanked her for it before I pedaled back up Spruce Street to finish my paper route.

I remember my parents being upset that the woman, Mrs. Merz, hadn’t been more generous in rewarding me. As she said she would do, she called the Herald’s office to tell them what I had done, but I never saw or heard from her again. Still, I felt good about doing the right thing for its own sake. Evidently, I must have learned a lesson or lessons about living that way at home or in church or school, but I don’t remember just where or when.

David James Madden

The Freedom We All Need

When I walked out of Lincoln School, Bennett Junior High, or Manchester High on days in June marking the last day of the school year, over two months of freedom stretched before me. I could ride my bike or walk to Globe Hollow to go swimming. I could go to the Mary Cheney Library to pick out books that I chose to read, not ones assigned to me by my teacher. I could stay up late and watch re-runs of television shows I was not allowed to watch on school nights. Or I could do nothing but sit on our enclosed front porch and listen to an approaching thunderstorm. I was free!

I was unaware how my sheltered life made these summers of freedom possible. I never stopped to think about how my father worked through most of the summer except for the two weeks of vacation he got from the post office. Nor did I think of the endless housework my mother did regardless of the season. She not only prepared all three meals for the family each day, but also cleaned up afterwards. Mom did all the laundry, and she even made the beds for not only herself and my father but for her three kids each day. Perhaps that’s how things were done in many homes during that time, but I still should have seen how unfair this was to her.

As the years passed, I had more chores to do such as raking leaves in the fall, shoveling the sidewalk after it snowed, and mowing the lawn in the summer. I delivered the Manchester Evening Herald on time each day Monday through Saturday to my seventy or so customers. But compared to the responsibilities that awaited me in adulthood, my burdens were light and my yoke was easy.

When I was walking to Manchester High School with a group of neighborhood guys for my first day of school in 1964, we passed by Lee’s Market on Spruce Street. A man in his thirties, an old guy by my reckoning then, was making a delivery to the store. He stopped pushing his cart filled with loaves of Wonder Bread and smiled at us as we approached him. With a wistfulness in his voice that I detected even then, he said, “Man, I wish I could switch places with you guys.” We all said at once, “Yeah, that sounds great, let’s do that!” but we kept walking as he maneuvered the cart to the front door of the store. It’s seems to me one of the ironies of life is kids wanting what they perceive as the freedom of adults: drive your own car, stay up late, no homework, go on dates, not have to mind your parents, while adults want to go back to a freedom they once longed to escape from. Maybe the freedom we all need is from the desires that keep us from living fully in the present moment.

David James Madden

Plain and Simple

It’s easy to drive right by our Quaker meetinghouse without noticing it’s there. It doesn’t have the steeple, ornamentation, or stained-glass windows that people usually associate with a house of worship. It’s a one-story gray building that could easily be mistaken for another single family dwelling among others in the neighborhood. There is a sign in front, but the lettering is somewhat small.

The inside of the meetinghouse is also plain and simple and, like the outside, does not conform to what many people may think of as a place for worship. Inside, the rectangular shaped meeting room has four sets of four benches, all facing inward toward the center. On the side of the room opposite the door are two rows of elevated benches. These were formerly used by what were once referred to as “weighty friends”, those whose voices, by virtue of their influence in the meeting, carried more “weight” than others. The expression “weighty friends” is sometimes still used today, but Friends no longer take a seat on the elevated benches to set themselves apart, as this is seen to conflict with the testimony of equality. The space in between the elevated benches is just wide enough for a small table and sometimes people bring in a flower arrangement and place it on the table, but the table is just as often left empty. There are no Bibles to be found on any of the benches and although there is a set of hymnals in the foyer, they are rarely used. Since there is no distinction between laity and clergy, there is no one person who is designated as the minister and therefore there is no pulpit. In Quaker practice, we are all responsible for ministering to each other.

Worship is a time of gathering in silent waiting, with an expectation of hearing the “still, small voice of God”. It is possible for the entire hour to pass in deeply spiritual silent worship, or it may happen that a Friend will feel called to share a message arising out of the prompting of the Spirit. After discerning if the message is a genuine ministry, he or she will stand, speak plainly and briefly, and then sit down to return, with the rest of the meeting, to silence. After enough time has passed for reflection, another message may be inspired by the previous words or a different message entirely may follow. It’s also possible the deep spiritual silence may continue unbroken until the hour closes when the person appointed to have care for the meeting shakes the hand of a person close by and says, “Good morning.” In all this, an unprogrammed Quaker meeting takes to heart the Psalmist’s words: “Be still, and know that I am God"

 David James Madden

Tenacity

Think how salmon migrate from the ocean

To the upper reaches of the river where they were born,

How they battle against currents to reach the place

Where they build their nests in gravel

With their last bit of strength and die soon after spawning.

Think how seeds of grass float on the wind

And find the slightest crack between Jersey barriers,

Or wherever the wind deposits them,

To grow with an indefatigable zeal

Not unlike the dogged determination

Of barnacles that cling to a rock

No matter how powerful the storms

That toss their waves upon them.

But salmon, grass and barnacles are not conscious

Of their unyielding persistence in the face of adversity,

They do just what their ancient code demands.

How much more worthy of our regard

Is the parent who arises on cold mornings

Before the sun comes up to go to work,

Not to return before the sun has set,

To provide for children who depend

On his unyielding will or her unshakable resolve

Through all the seasons of the year.

There is no tenacity like that born of love.

David James Madden

The Basis of a Worldview

The Memorial Day parade was one of the big community events of the year when I was growing up in Manchester, Connecticut. The parade would march up Main Street and turn right on to East Center Street. There would be a brief ceremony at the World War II Memorial in Munro Park, then the marchers would make a U-turn on Goodwin Street and head back toward Center Park. The parade would disband near the park’s statue of the Civil War soldier, where some of the spectators would remain for a service to remember those who had died in the nation’s wars.

The service would include the singing of patriotic songs by Manchester High’s Round Table Singers, the recitation of the Gettysburg Address by a high school student, a keynote speaker, and prayers. The playing of taps signaled the end of the ceremony. During the early 1960’s, the monument was surrounded by shrubbery that made the area around it look like a sort of sanctuary. Flowers were arranged around the pedestal, giving it the appearance of a church altar. The service was attended by people who understood and respected the reason it was being held. I didn’t fully realize at the time that for some of the adults around me, their loss remained immediate. World War II and Korea, even World War I, were for them not just historical, but personal.

It can be thrilling to watch a parade with soldiers marching in step, flags waving in the breeze, and bands playing a tune by John Philip Souza. So I’m thankful I walked up to the parkin those days instead of going straight home after the last marcher had passed by. Because of those services, Memorial Day meant more for me than just a day to enjoy a parade. Their solemn nature, so different from the pageantry that I had witnessed just minutes before, planted seeds of ambivalence in my adolescent mind. Those subconscious seeds took root, and I began to question if war was the glorious adventure it was still sometimes portrayed to be in those final years of post-war America. Questions like that became the basis of a worldview that has continued to expand ever since.

David James Madden

Like the Flowers of the Field

Photo by Rosalynn Carlson LaChapelle

A friend asked me recently what I would do if I learned I had one year to live. The unspoken assumption was that I would have all of one full year. However, if this imaginary scenario was anything like real life, the curtain could close at any given moment during the 365 days I had been granted. So I quickly thought of the question as being less hypothetical than actual.

When I was a child or an adolescent, I would probably have responded by listing people to see, places to go and things to do in the limited amount of time being offered.  But this would have been just a game to play on a summer afternoon while waiting for the rain to stop. I knew elderly family members who had died and I had watched WWII documentaries on Walter Cronkite’s “The Twentieth Century.” I knew death was a reality, it’s just that it didn’t apply to me. I always assumed that tomorrow would arrive right on time next morning, just one more sunrise in the limitless amount of time stretching ahead of me. 

Now my eighth decade is well underway, and I have come to see in a more personal way that all of us, including me, have a finite amount of time. When I was in Sunday School at Community Baptist Church, I remember listening to Reverend Elsesser as he read from the book of Isaiah: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.” Back then, I thought that was a strange thing to say since everyone knew people live longer than grass and flowers. I get it now.

But if it weren’t a game and I actually had just one year to live, I might want to go on another cruise, maybe to Alaska this time or down the Mississippi River. Or maybe I would go back to Washington DC and see some of the sights I haven’t seen yet. Renting an RV and traveling around the country for a few months sounds cool too. Maybe I would go with Finley, Everly and Emma to Disney World although I doubt I would like amusement parks anymore in my hypothetical life than I do in my actual one.

It just might be that I would also spend as much of my hypothetical final year in pretty much the same way I hope to spend whatever actual time I have left. I would get my children’s book, Under the Stars, published. I would continue to go to the Quaker Meeting and be the secretary for Westerly Area Peace and Justice and Westerly-Pawcatuck Clergy Association. I would continue to read my books and write my short stories and blog entries. I’d still go to the YMCA to lift weights and go for run/walks around Wilcox Park and Watch Hill.  I’d still go to family get-togethers and parties, see my friends, watch the Patriots, go the Rhode Island shore. I’d train to run the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving Day. It appears this hypothetical life and my actual life aren’t all that different in some important ways. All in all, I’d say that’s a good thing.

David James Madden

There I Was

The term “bucket list” became a popular expression after the release of the 2007 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. They played two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward with a wish list of things they want to do before they die. Regardless of how many days we think we have in front of us, it can be good to have goals and dreams that inspire and motivate us to go beyond the ordinary, everyday matters that make up so much of our lives. But I’m not so sure that checking off life events on a list is necessarily the best way to approach life.

When I sat on the veranda of Mount Vernon and looked out across the Potomac River a number of years ago, I fulfilled a dream I had had for many years. There I was, sitting in the same place where George Washington once sat, gazing upon a view that was very much like the one he would have seen in the 18th century. For a long time, one of my goals had been to go to Gettysburg and see Little Round Top, the Peach Orchard and the Wheat Field. After seeing those places, I went to the location of the clump of trees on Cemetery Hill that Pickett’s men had aimed for when they charged across the open field on July 3, 1863. There I was, standing at the very spot that has gone down in history as the “high-water mark of the Confederacy.” On neither occasion, however, did I take a piece of paper out of my pocket, metaphorically or otherwise, and cross off the words “Visit Mount Vernon” or “See Gettysburg.”

A bucket list can be a way to avoid leading a life of quiet desperation and going to the grave with our song still in us. It’s always a good idea to consider anything said by Henry David Thoreau. But at the same time, writing down a list of people to see, places to go and things to do before I die can also be seen as a good idea that has morphed into a cliché. How much are bucket lists a matter of setting goals people really want to accomplish for themselves as opposed to attempts to have the longest list with the coolest items? For many people, myself included, the latter reason might carry at least as much importance as the former. Or to ask that question another way, how long would my bucket list of goals and dreams be if I knew I wouldn’t have the chance to talk afterwards about how I accomplished them? It’s possible my list might be pared down considerably under those circumstances. It seems to me that time spent in trying to convince myself or impress others of my significance is the opposite of what a bucket list is supposed to be all about.

David James Madden

When I was Younger

In 1970, When I was 20 years old, I would sometimes run up Case Mountain in Manchester, CT. Case Mountain isn’t really a mountain, but running up it, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, was an excellent workout. I ran there mostly in the fall, probably because, in my mind, that was still as cross-country season. It was uphill from the moment I left the “stairway to nowhere” at the start of the trail. By the time I got to a section shaded by pine trees I’d be winded, but in another 50 yards or so, I’d be at the summit. That’s where the canopy of oak and pine trees that had shaded me from the still warm noonday sun gave way to sunlight and blue September sky. It wasn’t the top of the world, but I was young and strong and the view from this part of my world was beautiful.

Sometimes, if the air was especially clear and bright that day, I’d slow down a little to take in the view of Hartford and the Connecticut River valley. But most of the time, I’d maintain or pick up my pace as the road curved to the left. Now it would be mostly downhill for close to two miles. I don’t think there have ever been times in my life when I felt better physically than I did when I ran up and down Case Mountain. I had always been a middle of the pack runner on my high school cross-country team. Guys on the team like Dave Stoneman and Rob McKinney would have been far out in front if they had joined me on one of those runs. But my high school days were over, and I always ran alone, not competing with anyone, not timing myself (although now I kind of wish I had). I ran just for the sheer joy of running and nothing else. I would usually get my second wind back after running uphill so for the entire way down my breathing would be relaxed and comfortable. When the pond would come in sight, I’d be close to where I had started. There was a little slope to go up, but then the “stairway to nowhere” would come in sight and another run was complete. I’d breathe the crisp, pine-scented autumn air in deeply for a minute or so and enjoy the satisfaction of a runner’s high.

After having bilateral hip surgery in 2019, I haven’t been able to run very much. I power-walk now through Wilcox Park and Watch Hill in Westerly. But I don’t get a second wind nor that endorphin-fueled rush from walking I used to get when running and I miss that. At the same time, I’m grateful for being able to walk as much as I do since before my surgery it was difficult to walk across the living room. I think I’m actually more thankful that I can walk again than I ever was when I could run around Case Mountain and other places over the years. The ability to run whenever I wanted to was something I took for granted when I was younger. Perhaps we’re most grateful for what we have in life when we come to realize we can’t take it for granted.

 David James Madden

In the Summer of 1957

In the summer of 1957, my mother, sister Jane, and I travelled by train across the country to visit my mother’s parents and her sister’s family in California for six weeks.

I have vivid memories of that experience, beginning with saying good-bye to my father at the train station in Hartford. I remember him kneeling down, holding me tight by the shoulders and looking at me with tears in his eyes. This frightened me and I cried out, “You’re crying.” He tried to assure me he wasn’t, but I was old enough to know he was, and I cried too.

My mother’s family had moved out west around the time my mother and father married in 1948.  Aunt Gladys moved first with her husband Robert, a pediatrician and their daughter, Carol Jane. My grandparents joined them soon after, leaving my mom behind with only her Aunt Edith, who lived in Providence, as nearby family. As I grew older, I became aware that my mother really missed her parents and sister a lot. I have wondered from time to time, if she ever had a thought to remain in California with Jane and me. Six weeks is a long time and I understand my father’s tears at the train station, but was he also frightened, as he hugged me close to him, that he might not see his children for a much longer time than one summer?

I’ll never know whatever feelings my mother might have kept to herself at that time, of course, but the trip to California has left me with many vivid memories. I would sometimes go to the sky view dome car and take in the ever-changing vistas during the three days the train rolled across America. One night, probably the last night before arriving at our destination, I slid open the cover on the small window of the upper berth where I slept in our tiny room. Before me, I saw the desert speeding by. There were sharply delineated mountains on the faraway horizon and as I gazed at this scene, a shooting star flashed across the sky. I remember crossing the Mississippi River and thinking that it was a lake. Another time a kid on a bicycle pedaled alongside my window as the train slowly made its way down the middle of a street in a small town somewhere in the Midwest.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Gladys lived in Santa Monica. They owned an attractive ranch house on a quiet suburban street with towering palm trees on either side of the road. Their backyard had a swimming pool where Jane and I spent many afternoons. There was a little hut next to the pool where we could change into our suits and take a shower. The hut had a strange pungent smell that came from the type of wood it was made from. As I type this now, my mind recalls the scent as vividly as if I were actually there again. The backyard had a spectacular view of the San Gabriel Mountains. In the evening, they looked purple. “Purple mountain majesties” is an accurate description.

My grandparents lived in Pasadena in a small apartment building made all the more nondescript by the towering mountain that overlooked it. I’m not sure how close their home was to their Aunt Gladys and Uncle Bob’s home, but I remember going there more than once. My aunt and uncle took us on a number of day trips during our time there. I remember seeing Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, the Santa Monica pier, Mount Wilson Observatory, and Colorado Boulevard where the Tournament of Roses parade is held on New Year’s Day.

I remember going to see Walt Disney’s Johnny Tremaine, a playground not far from my aunt and uncle’s home, my cousin Carol Jane’s teenage infatuation with Pat Boone and her repeated playing of “Love Letters in the Sand,” a woman in the house next store who would cry every night for her mommy. This sad sound scared me the first time I heard it and I went to my mom and aunt and uncle and told them that the lady next door was in trouble. My aunt and uncle laughed when I said that, so I figured everything was okay when I heard her crying on other nights. It seems strange to me now that they laughed at a neighbor’s pain as they did.

There were lots of tears from all the adults and Carol Jane when we left to return to Connecticut. I became concerned when an older boy, maybe 10 or 11, pointed to a nearby freight car and told me there was a body in it. I recall nothing about the trip back, about seeing my father again, about starting third grade shortly after returning. The last thing I remember from that summer is standing at the station, waiting for the train to bring us back to Connecticut, and looking at that freight car with dread in the pit of my stomach. All these years later, that’s where my memory of the trip to California ends.

David James Madden

Four Poems on Spring

Spring's Messenger

Today I saw, with glad surprise,

a crocus pushing through the ground.

Soon, wherever I turn my eyes,

I'll see myriad life abound

in every garden, field, and tree.

So all snow melt and ice now thaw;

this glimpse is all it took for me

to wish for winter to withdraw.

Another Spring

Another spring has come around,

it's time to bring the spades and hoes

to the garden and break the ground,

break the ground into even rows

and breathe the rich, primeval smells

of sod upturned to air and sun.

It's time to know the truth earth tells:

the soul of soil and man are one.

Winter to Spring

The Big Dipper, high in the northeast sky,

lets us know, in just a few more days, spring

will arrive. We listen to songbirds sing

their sweet, twittering warble from on high,

confirming what the stars promise is true:

winter is finally about to end.

Oh, spring may play her game of "Let's pretend!"

and send us snow, perhaps an inch or two,

to cover some emerging green with white

and put on hold some plans for a garden.

That's a prank easy enough to pardon,

an hour of sun puts the matter right,

and once more we start to think spring (unless

there's a blizzard) would not dare regress.

As Spring Returns

As spring returns to the earth,

so does God come to the soul.

For in this time of the birth

of tender shoot, lamb and foal,

of ice melting on the pond

in the warmth of vernal sun,

of music heard from beyond

the meadow where rabbits run:

the song of sparrow and wren

rejoicing in greater light,

and of every field and fen

proclaiming green to our sight,

we know the various ways

God comes to our hearts and days.

David James Madden