The Place to Spend Saturday Afternoons

If you were a kid in the 1950’s and 60’s and you wanted to go the movies in Manchester CT, you headed for 745 Main Street. That was the location of the State Theater with its seating, counting the balcony, for over 1300 people. Since opening in 1925, the State had been an attraction in Manchester with its huge proscenium stage for vaudeville acts as well as silent movies and later the talkies.

For me and hundreds of other kids, the State Theater was the place to spend Saturday afternoons watching the matinees. I especially remember the many Walt Disney movies that were made in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, movies such as The Parent Trap, 101 Dalmatians, Pollyanna, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and Swiss Family Robinson. I recall the smell of the hot buttered popcorn and the taste of Necco Wafers, Junior Mints and Good and Plenty that were sold at the brightly-lit concession stand in the foyer. Some kids probably spent almost as much time walking back and forth between the seats and the snacks as actually paying attention to the movie.

A few weeks after I graduated from Manchester High School in 1967, I got my first job, not counting my paper route for the Manchester Evening Herald, as an usher at the State. Among the movies playing that summer and fall were Hawaii, A Man for All Seasons, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night and Wait Until Dark. That’s a pretty impressive cinematic list, but with the exception of Hawaii, I always got kind of bored after several showings.

The first night Hawaii with Julie Andrews, Max Von Sydow and Richard Harris was shown, I had spent that afternoon at Old Sturbridge Village with my family. I was surprised when the movie opened with scenes from the Freeman farm, village green and Salem Towne house, the very places where I had been just a few hours before. I watched with rapt attention as dour Abner Hale (Von Sydow) went to the home of beautiful Jerusha Bromley (Andrews) to propose marriage before embarking to the island kingdom of Hawaii to convert the native population to Christianity. To this day, Hawaii is my all-time favorite movie. I wasn’t paying as close attention to the movie on the first night Wait Until Dark was shown. When Harry Roat, played by Alan Arkin, leaped up and grabbed Susy Hendrix’s (played by Audrey Hepburn)ankle, the packed house screamed in unison and my shock at this sudden outburst felt just like an electric jolt going through me. After that, I made sure to brace myself just before the scream of terror that always erupted at that moment in the movie.

One of the last movies I saw at the State was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Only a huge screen like the one housed in the State Theater could do full justice to the scene where the giant mother ship slowly ascends from behind Devil’s Tower at the movie’s climax.

With today’s Hi-Def big screen televisions and surround sound speakers, I suppose it could be argued that it makes more sense in some ways to watch movies at home nowadays. But it seems to me that nothing can top the excitement Manchester kids in the fifties and sixties experienced when they spent a Saturday afternoon in the grand old State Theater.

Two Roads in a Yellow Wood

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler…” from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

I sometimes think about those times in my life when “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” That constantly diverging road is where we make the choices that determine our future. Is this the school to choose? The job to take? The person to marry? The house to live in? The church to join? If, at any given fork in the road, we were more or less wealthy, attractive, ambitious, ethical then we actually were, there’s a good chance the choice we made at that point would have been different. So at times I ask myself what might have happened if I had chosen another road. And that question has led to another I’ve asked myself from time to time: Would I go back and take a “do-over” at one of those divergent points if that possibility were to present itself?

For years, I’ve enjoyed running through Watch Hill during the summer. Since my hip surgery two years ago, I haven’t been running as much, but I’ve done some running/walking several times a week for the past year and maybe that will mean a little more running this year. We’ll see. Sometimes, when I’ve run through Watch Hill, I’ve glanced at the mansions and thought to myself how great it would be to live in one of them. Imagine, I’ve mused, standing on my deck at night and seeing the stars twinkling above the revolving beam of the Watch Hill lighthouse, going to sleep to the sound of waves crashing on the shore, waking up to see the sun rising through a ribbon of multi-colored clouds over the ocean.

One summer day, a number of years ago, these thoughts came to me once again as I ran along Bluff Avenue admiring those beautiful homes. But this time another thought also occurred to me. It went something like this: “David, an angel is going to come down from heaven right this minute and give you a choice. You can choose a different life that includes the wealth to own that mansion, or you can continue to have a life with the health to run past it. But you can only have one, wealth or health. Which do you choose?” I knew without a moment of doubt that I would choose health. I already had what I really wanted!

There have been times in my life when I have regretted the choices I’ve made. Because of the roads I have taken in the yellow wood we all walk through, I’ve known disappointments, frustrations, sorrows. But I wouldn’t take a “do-over” if an angel offered me one. Who knows what a difference it would make? What would I give up in my life as I’ve lived it? What would I gain from living a different life? It would all be too risky. I’ve loved running through Watch Hill too much to tell the angel I want to live in one of those mansions.

 David James Madden

A Sense of Exhilaration

When Sheila, my first wife, and I moved from Mystic to North Stonington in 1978, we had to adjust to living miles away from just about everything. I could get a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread at the little grocery store in the center of town, but doctors, dentists, pharmacies and stores were no longer just a few minutes away. When our twin sons, Andrew and Jeremy, were admitted to the Happy Time Nursery School at Union Baptist Church in Mystic, the problems of juggling our schedules with one car intensified. I carpooled with teachers to SB Butler School, also in Mystic, but that was not a satisfactory  solution. Our various schedules didn’t always coincide and that meant trying to arrange rides in a haphazard way. Buying another car was not an option. This was before Governor O’Neill increased the pay of teachers in Connecticut. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and too often coming way too close to zero in the bank account a day or two before payday.

At some point, I got the idea of riding my ten-speed bike to school. After a few trial runs, I bought some saddle bags to carry books and school papers back and forth. I got a headlight, a helmet, goggles and a rearview mirror. I also bought a bright yellow vinyl plastic covering for stormy weather. It fit over the handlebars and I sat on the back of it to keep it from flying up in the wind. On rainy days I would arrive at school reasonably dry, although when it was really pouring my pants would get wet from the knees down. Riding in the snow was better because I wouldn’t get wet, although snow would make it difficult to see through my goggles.

I pedaled to work in the heat of September and the cold of January for a little over three years. For the first mile or so in the morning, I rode up a long, steep hill up Route 184 to where it intersected with Jeremy Hill Road. That was a good thing because in the winter, even on the coldest mornings, I would be warm enough to be reasonably comfortable for the rest of the ride. I would sometimes feel a sense of exhilaration on those cold winter mornings. I’d even glance at the drivers in the opposite lane and feel kind of sorry for them because they were inside their stuffy cars and I was gulping in fresh, bracing air.

My route to SBButler took me down Route 184 until I turned off toward Old Mystic. From there I would pedal down River Road. Some of my best memories of this time are of the Mystic River in autumn with mist rising off the water and golden sunlight filtering through the trees on the Stonington side. Going up Baptist Hill toward the end of my nine mile ride could be a real challenge, especially on a warm morning in September or June. There were no showers at the school, so I would get there early to cool down before the kids came to class.

There were times when it took close to all I had to make it home after a day of teaching. In the winter it would be getting dark as I left the school building, so I would take a back-route home. That meant going up Mistuxet Avenue in Mystic, a short but very steep hill that could really take it out of me. I always made it to the top without once stopping to walk.

I have a recurring dream every so often where I’m riding a bike and have five minutes to get to school when I’m ten miles away. Other times my bike tires are square or the faster I pedal the slower I go. Maybe riding a bike to work was unconsciously more stressful than I realized, but at the time, I felt good that I had found a way to solve a problem and keep going. I still do.

 David James Madden

In the Shadow of World War Two

During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Milton-Bradley Company created a number of games based on American wars. Broadside was derived from the War of 1812, Battle Cry from the Civil War, Dogfight from World War I and Hit the Beach from World War II. Whenever one of those games appeared on the shelves of Marlowe’s Department Store on Main Street, I would get some of the money from my Manchester Evening Herald paper route and go buy it.

 As I look back on those games now from the perspective of more than a half century, I am struck by this emphasis on war in the games I played when I was a kid. Those days weren’t all that far removed from WWII, but since I was born four years after the war ended, they meant no more to me personally than the American Revolution. I remember watching a television program in 1964 when Walter Cronkite walked along Omaha Beach in Normandy, France with Dwight Eisenhower as they recounted the events that took place there twenty years before. As far as I was concerned these two men were describing ancient history. I didn’t realize it at the time, but for many of the grownups working in stores on Main Street, teaching in my classrooms or singing in my church’s choir, the Second World War was still quite real, as real as 9/11 is for me now as its 20th anniversary draws near. I can more fully appreciate how much our society still lived in the shadow of World War Two when I was playing Hit the Beach.

 On top of the lingering effects of World War Two on our society, 1961-1965 was also the centennial of the Civil War. My friend’s father built a large platform in the attic of their house and Craig would spend hours designing battlefields on it using hundreds of toy Civil War soldiers along with toy trees and houses. When I came over to see him, we would admire all that he had done in the past week, then play at strategically fighting a battle with the soldiers. Craig would usually win because he had set up the battle giving the advantage to the Rebel army that he always commanded, but I didn’t really mind because of the fun we would have for the hour or so it would take for the battle to be won or lost.

I suppose it's a little surprising that someone who made a game out of war as much as I once did would end up never firing a gun other than an air rifle or a cap pistol. I not only played war games, I would sometimes neglect my homework when I went to Mary Cheney Library to get a book on World War Two and read it until closing time. But in the years that followed, I came to realize that war is not a game. About a year ago, I was looking at some old pictures of Manchester. One of them was of a company of soldiers marching up Main Street in their uniforms, rifles over their shoulders, all looking forward with determined looks. It was 1917 or 1918 and they were heading toward a train in the north end of town for the first step in the journey that would eventually take them to France. I didn’t see any of the glory of war in that picture I would have perceived 60 years ago. Instead, my eyes misted with tears.

David James Madden

A Gift Not Everyone Receives

A Man Writing at his Desk, Jan Ekels (II), 1784

When I was eighteen, I decided I wanted to be a writer. I knew, of course, how to put words down on paper, but not how to transform that rudimentary skill into images and ideas that would interest lots of people enough to keep them turning a page. One day, I told John Jackson, the director of the Mary Cheney Library in Manchester, CT, where I had a part time job, about my wish. I explained to him how I found it difficult to overcome distractions long enough to write down anything of significance. He responded by setting up a desk in the windowless basement of the library where old documents and books were stored. People rarely went into the room so I was assured I’d have plenty of the privacy I said I needed. I’d be able to concentrate and write away to my heart’s content. After Mr. Jackson left me to my writing that day, I took a close look at my surroundings. I in was a large, dingy room where the only light came from a 100-watt bulb dangling from an extension cord above my desk. It was a damp, musty place and there was a strange unpleasant odor that permeated the air, a combination of mildew, old paper and damp concrete.

For several days, I would take a notebook and pen and descend into the library storeroom. This was  during a stretch of beautiful summer weather when I could have been outside riding my bike, playing tennis or swimming at Globe Hollow. I would trudge down the concrete stairs, take a seat at the desk, open my notebook and I write. Or I would try to. I found my surroundings to be highly disagreeable, made all the more so by knowing the August sun beyond my dank concrete enclosure was warm and bright. This caused me to feel, after not too much time had passed, that writing without any diversions might not really be what I wanted after all.  That and, even more importantly, a lack of direction and confidence, led to spending less and less time in my gloomy inner sanctum until finally, after less than a month, I abandoned the effort altogether.

I had thought the obstacle to a writing career had been the lack of a place to write without interruptions coming either from myself or others. I quickly found isolation and less than ideal surroundings could also keep me from what I had thought was my goal of literary glory. Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jack London, along with hundreds of other writers, certainly all had obstacles to overcome and I’m sure for many of them, stumbling blocks greater than mine. Did someone influence them to make writing the most important goal in their lives, come what may? Or did they possess an inborn belief in their ability with words so powerful that they were convinced, no matter what the obstacle, it was not a matter of if, but when, the world would discover their literary talents?

I’ve wondered sometimes if any of those writers would have persevered and stayed in that dank and dismal room until they emerged with at least one story. I think it’s more likely than not that they would have. But then, perhaps being able to write the way they did is not just a matter of perseverance. Maybe even more it’s a gift, one that must be honed and refined with hard work, but nevertheless a gift not everyone receives. And for those who do receive it, not always a gift fully apprehended or appreciated. The act of writing in such a way as to make a reader want to keep turning the page is in large part a mystery.

It’s not that I walked out of that gloomy storage room at the Mary Cheney Library for the last time and never tried to write again. In the years since I have written poems, short stories, editorials, reports and essays. I wrote An Unknown Soldier, a novel about what war does to ordinary people and the redemption that love makes possible. I can honestly say to myself that I’ve acted upon the decision I made when I was an adolescent. While this hasn’t resulted in the fame and fortune I envisioned at eighteen, I think I’ve written well and with a fair amount of success. If you’re still reading my words at this point, then perhaps you agree.

David James Madden

The Deepest Part of Who I Am

During the summer of 1966, between my junior and senior year at Manchester High School, I ran several days a week to get ready for the cross-country season. Being only sixteen, I didn’t hesitate to run the Manchester Road Race course in the middle of the day when the temperatures were hottest. When practice began I was in great shape, and Coach Simes projected I would be the number four runner on the varsity. Unfortunately, I came down with shin splints and was a middle of the pack runner for the entire season. Still, when the team had their end of the season banquet at Willy’s Steakhouse, I was surprised when I heard my name called to come up to the podium and get my varsity letter. That meant going to Nassiff Arms Sporting Goods on Main Street a few days later and getting my letterman’s sweater. My mom sewed the letter on the pocket and the numbers for my graduating year, 1967, on the sleeve.

I understood there were unspoken high school rules about not wearing your sweater too often, and since I felt like I hadn’t earned my letter by contributing to the team’s victories the way Dave Stoneman had, I didn’t wear my sweater more than a handful of times during my final year of high school. But I would sometimes put it on at home, look in the full-length mirror in the upstairs hallway and feel proud of my accomplishment.

I still have my letterman’s sweater. I’m bigger in the arms and shoulders than I was then and, of course, I wouldn’t wear it now even if it still fit. It just hangs in the bedroom closet and will until the day comes when it’s time for my family to decide what to do with my worldly possessions.

So many days have passed since I was a shy, sensitive kid running for my high school cross-country team that I wonder sometimes if I’m really the same person I was then. It’s not that I have to put on my letterman’s sweater to convince myself that the David of 1966 is the same person as the David of 2021. But who is the unchanging “I” who has existed since the moment of my birth and will continue to exist until my final breath? I have gone through so many changes during the course of my life, physically, mentally and spiritually, how can I claim to be the same person I once was? I used to run the Manchester Road Race course at around a 7-minute mile pace. Two years ago I had bilateral hip surgery and will probably have to walk part of the course if I line up next November. When I read Walden in tenth grade, I was bored. When I reread it last year, I was entranced. I used to understand the Bible literally, as history and prose. Now I interpret the stories of the Bible symbolically, as mythology and poetry.

Scientists discovered in the 1950’s that the human body replaces itself with a new set of cells every seven to ten years. So in a very real sense, the person I was in high school is physically no longer alive, but that young man lives on in the deepest part of who I am. The sweater in my closet reminds me to think about him from time to time. He’s a good kid.

David James Madden

The Same Constraints of Time

When I was growing up, I would sometimes wish for time to pass quickly so I could get to a day I was looking forward to. I’d count down the days until Christmas, my birthday, summer vacation and if I could have, I would’ve waved a magic wand and made the intervening days instantly disappear. Childhood and teenage years are a chapter in our lives when there is little or no thought given to the limited nature of our lives. That was true for me anyway. But even as an adult when I was a teacher, there were the difficult school years of 1975-76 and 1989-90 when I wished that time would pass by quickly. Maybe when you are 25 and 40 you’re still young enough to want time to speed by in return for relief from the present moment.

Now I have reached an age where I want time to slow down. I thought that was going to be what would happen when I retired. I was concerned that I would need activities since I didn’t have a full-time teaching schedule and now had many hours to fill during the day. I went to Mystic Seaport to get an application to volunteer once the school year started. My plan was to substitute a day or two in local schools and volunteer at the Seaport several times a month. Together with my involvement in the Quaker meeting and volunteering at the hospital, I hoped that would be enough to fill the hours of the week that had been taken up by work for 35 years. However, once September rolled around, I was surprised to find that the days seemed to go by more quickly than they ever had. In fact, that perspective of time speeding up intensified as the post-retirement months and years passed by.

It turns out that time seeming to pass more quickly as we age is not just something we imagine. Scientific research indicates that the way our brains process information changes our perspective on time as the years go by. For example, when we’re children and go to the beach for the beach for the first time, everything we experience, such as playing in the sand, feeling the cold water on our arms and legs, the hot sun on our backs, is new to us. Our brains work in such a way as to record these new experiences as memories more than they do recognized, familiar happenings. For that reason, subsequent trips to the beach, though still lots of fun, come to be seen as part of what we expect to happen on a summer day and thus result in fewer memories. Since childhood is a time when so much is new to us and we are therefore constantly having unique experiences, we tend to store more memories of those days than we do of times when we are older and so much of life has become more routine. The greater number of memories from childhood compared to when we’re adults creates the illusion that time lasted longer back then than in later years. The feeling of time flying by is a trick our minds play on us because of the way our memories receive and store information.

I am also aware these days of how much more time there is behind me than there is ahead. I  remember things that happened when I was 50 and it can be unsettling at times to realize that’s the same amount of time that will pass should I be so fortunate as to reach 90. Mortality has become more personal; it now applies to me too! At one time, I would look at the oil paintings and black and white photographs of people who lived before me I was born and think of them as almost a different species. Now I see myself connected to them by the same constraints of time that I must also accept. That’s one of the thoughts that gives me a much more immediate perspective on the words of Isaiah than the disinterested one I had when I first read them as a kid at Community Baptist Church:

“All people are grass; their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40: 6-8

David James Madden

A Genuine Willingness

We long for connections to others. We want to belong to something greater than ourselves. At the same time, we often wish for freedom from constraints imposed on us by belonging to a group. These opposing pulls can cause stress on both institutions and individuals as we try to meet the requirements of our outer and inner worlds. How do we genuinely balance our need to be self-determining individuals and, at the same time, contributing members of society?

The answer depends in part on our definitions. If my interpretation of self-determination is how much I can gain for myself in terms of power, prestige and wealth, then the possibilities for balance between a person and community are greatly reduced. On the other hand, if I characterize myself primarily by my role in a given social unit, then I risk losing my true identity.

Community in the fullest sense of the word does not thrive in an atmosphere of either self-centeredness or subservience. Both of these tendencies are corrosive elements that gradually destroy community from within even though it may appear at first glance that a community is thriving. This happens in cults where members enthusiastically affirm the life-enhancing qualities of the group even while the egoism of the leader and the subordination of the followers create a devouring monster that eventually consumes all psychologically or physically or both.

Communities and individuals flourish when they serve each other out of a genuine willingness to realize for each other the ultimate goal of self-determination: to love and to be loved in return. When love is made real, the community envisioned by Cesar Chavez is made real:

“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”

 David James Madden

Enough Light to See

The Early Lighting exhibit at Old Sturbridge Village features bronze pan lamps of ancient Greece and Rome through whale oil lamps and lanterns from the nineteenth century. One of the displays shows how much light was available in rooms after sunset during the 1830’s and 40’s.  The light is very dim by our standards today, even in homes owned by wealthy people who could afford lots of candles and the latest in lighting technology. In many homes long ago, the flickering light from fireplaces and a few candles was the most people could provide for themselves.

I get a sense of what life must have been like in those days when we lose power for a few hours. Bur even then, my halogen flashlight is more intense than any candle or lantern available to people 175 years ago. And if the power is out for a longer period of time, all I have to do is follow the steps for getting the generator running. Just a few minutes and all the lights go back on and the rooms are as nice and bright as they always are.

The first time I visited the Early Lighting exhibit at Old Sturbridge Village it occurred to me that for the vast majority of human history, lighting was pretty much the same as it was in early 19th century America. For centuries, once the sun went down, human beings experienced darkness in ways that are quite unfamiliar to us today. The world has been a very different place since 1879 when Thomas Edison passed electricity through a thin platinum filament in a glass vacuum bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

We live right on the edge of the Westerly town forest and sometimes a wild animal will make a strange sound in the darkness. If I turn on the backyard floodlights I can see what’s lurking out there and how close it is to the house. Usually, there’s nothing to be seen since the light chases critters away. But imagine the year is 1520and there’s no way to see what’s making that peculiar noise in the dark. Maybe that sound isn’t coming from a fox. Maybe it’s coming from a wolf, or a bear, or a witch. Maybe the devil himself is lurking nearby, unseen in the blackness of a moonless night.

Several years ago, I was the only one in the locker room of the fitness center I belonged to when the lights went out. I had been in this room many times, but in the complete darkness, I lost my bearings. I didn’t know where the walls or benches were. I wasn’t sure how to get to the exit. I stood still for a few moments, waiting for my eyes to adjust, but the room remained totally dark. Not knowing how long the lights would be out, I began to feel panic creeping up on me. I tried to tell myself I was perfectly safe, but I couldn’t entirely hold off a sense of being trapped in a tomb from which there was no escape. Suddenly it occurred to me that the watch I was wearing might provide some light if I pressed the knob that illuminated its face. Just enough light shone from the watch to allow me to take a step before it went dark again. I repeated this process over and over until I made my way to the curved exit that led to the main room where an emergency light on the far wall lit the way out.

Did our ancestors once view dusk with more apprehension than we do today? Did they greet dawn with greater assurance?  In Walden, Thoreau wrote, “It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch myself into the night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous, and set sail from some bright village parlor or lecture room…” but he marched to the beat of a different drummer. I prefer enough light to see by and I am probably not that different from others, both past and present, in that regard. In the Gospel of John, we read the words “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Perhaps those words had greater power for past generations than they do for us today, more accustomed as we are to well-lit rooms and roads.

 David James Madden

The Possibility of Improbable Events

Mark, Jim and I grew up during the 60’s in three towns that border each other in central Connecticut: Jim in South Windsor, Mark in Vernon and me in Manchester. We met and became friends through Community Baptist Church. When I went to Camp Wightman in July 1971, I met Sheila and moved to Mystic to be with her in May of 1972. We were married at Union Baptist Church in June of 1973. Jim was my best man and Mark was an usher. Mark met Sheila’s sister, Dianne, at my wedding and they married in 1975.

 Jim drove down to Mystic around midnight the night my twin sons were born on April 1, 1976. This was just one of many times he came down to see me, first in Mystic and then in North Stonington when Sheila, Andrew, Jeremy and I moved there in 1978. I also saw my friend and brother-in-law, Mark, many times over the years in the 70’s and 80’s, but then Sheila and I divorced in 1989. Jim and I remained close after that but I saw very little of Mark, especially after he moved to New Hampshire to be the pastor of a church in Wolfeboro.

 One afternoon, Jim and I were playing pool at his home in Manchester when I told him that I hadn’t seen Mark in years and doubted that I ever would again. I felt a real sense of loss for a relationship that had been a part of my life for many years.

 About eight years ago, Andrew told me that Mark and Dianne were thinking about buying a house in Westerly less than a quarter of a mile from me. It was a very old house, built in the late 18th century, and had been in bad shape for a number of years. I drove by it, and sure enough, there was a For Sale sign on the front lawn, but it seemed unlikely to me that Mark would buy a house that would require so much work. 

 Then one winter day I got a phone call from Mark to tell me he had bought the house. One of his (and my former) sisters-in-law had given him my number and he was calling to see if it would be possible to stay with Sandra and me from time to time while he worked on the house, which didn’t have working electricity or plumbing at the time. After getting the okay from Sandra, I told Mark he was more than welcome. There was a lot of work for him to do, so Mark stayed with us a number of times over the next year or so while he ingeniously and almost singlehandedly converted “this old house” into an attractive, comfortable home.

 Mark and I have been neighbors for several years now. During that time, we’ve been getting together on Tuesdays for a couple of hours to read and discuss books. Sometimes Mark comes over to see me and sometimes I go to see him. Since March, we’ve been zooming on Tuesdays and then on Sunday evenings with Jim.

 More than once I’ve thought that having Mark live right around the corner from me after all those years of being apart is a miracle. By that, I don’t mean God interceded to reunite me with one of my two lifelong friends. To me, believing in such supernatural interventions opens a theological quandary that can be managed only by excluding rational thought. However, I do believe in the possibility of improbable events in life unexpectedly bringing welcome results. When defined that way, being reunited with Mark is a “wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.”

David James Madden

Haiku for Four Seasons

Spring

The darkness deepens

And now stars and fireflies

Light the evening sky.

Summer

A storm approaches,

The sky turns dark as a bruise

And thunder rumbles.

Autumn

In autumn, the sky

Is hazy with golden light

That warms the crisp air.

Winter

Sometimes a snowstorm

Begins very quietly,

The flakes fall straight down.

 David James Madden

A Certain Amount of Time

Loneliness and solitude appear on the surface to be similar, even the same. If I were to see a picture of a man sitting in a room with nobody else present, I might use either word to describe which of the two states he is in. This would be especially true if I first noticed he appeared to have a blank expression that gave no clue as to his psychological or emotional state. In both cases I would initially observe he is by himself, separate.

But if I focused more closely on his face, I might be able to ascertain if the picture was showing me a man in a state of aloneness or solitude. If he looked sad, I might be inclined to say he was lonely. If he appeared to be content, then I might be led to say he was experiencing solitude. What causes the difference between these two states of being that look the same but that are quite different?

I believe one reason for this distinction has to do with choice. If I am separate from others because of circumstances largely out of my control, I will most likely feel lonely. If I am separate from others because that is my preference for a certain amount of time I set for myself, then I am probably choosing to spend some time in solitude.

When I was between marriages from 1990 to 1993, there were times when I was by myself for parts of the weekends. Those were hard times for me. It hadn’t been my choice to end my first marriage and so it was difficult for me to be in the now empty house by myself. I lived through times of loneliness when I was in high school and felt like I didn’t fit in with my peers. I sometimes perceived teaching as a lonely profession even though I was in a classroom filled with students. Despite being around other people all day, I would occasionally feel isolated because, being in a self-contained classroom, I usually didn’t have other teachers to share with during the course of the day. There have never been prolonged periods of time when loneliness has been a constant in my life but, in the words of Robert Frost, there have been moments in my life when “I have been one acquainted with the night.”

On the other hand, I have also known what it is to be in a state of solitude and have found such times to be energizing, inspiring, uplifting. Listening to Dvorak’s 9th Symphony or Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, reading poetry by Robert Frost or a short story by Ernest Hemingway, watching snow fall or listening to waves crashing on a Rhode Island beach are all solitary experiences that I enjoy by myself from time to time.

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau had this to say about being apart from others by choice: “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone.” It would be far too much aloneness for me to live in the woods by myself for two years as Thoreau did. At most, all I need are a few hours apart from the physical presence of other people in order to reflect and renew myself. There’s no right or wrong length of time needed to restore ourselves by being in the company of the one person in the world who knows us better than anyone else.

 David James Madden

As a Fish is Surrounded by Water

It makes me happy when I see my two year old granddaughter, Evie, running toward me, squealing excitedly, arms flapping like she’s a little chicken trying to fly, then rushing into my arms for a hug. Evie expresses what she is feeling without reservation, without a thought given to decorum. When she feels joy, she lets everyone around her know that beyond a doubt. It makes me very happy to know that I am the source of her joy at that moment. May that always be true, though she will most likely express joy with more restraint at times as she goes through the coming stages of her life.

I’m listening to music written centuries ago by Georg Philipp Telemann as I write this. I learned to love Telemann when I attended Community Baptist Church in Manchester, Connecticut. The organist during my childhood and youth was an accomplished musician and she played Telemann, Bach, Handel and Corelli beautifully. Remembering that time in my life makes me happy.

Accomplishing something makes me happy: writing my novel An Unknown Soldier and seeing it in print. Writing my children’s story Under the Stars (and hoping it will be published someday). Stacking firewood. Teaching for 35 years. Balancing the checkbook. Leading the writing group for almost 11 years at the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center. Cleaning the kitchen. Writing the minutes for the Westerly Friends Meeting, the Westerly-Pawcatuck Clergy Association and the Westerly Area Peace and Justice Group. Doing the laundry.

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau. The first time I read it, when I was in high school many years ago, I was mostly bored by it. This time, I was amazed by Thoreau’s eye for detail and his ability to describe Walden Pond in the different seasons of the year. I was happy to read it and even more to realize how my appreciation for and understanding of literature has expanded since I was in high school.

My definition of happiness has also changed as I have progressed through life. Sliding down a snow covered hill on an inner tube at Center Park in Manchester, jumping in a pile of autumn leaves, riding the waves all day at Misquamicut used to be things that made me happy. Now the memories of those times is a source of happiness. At the same time, I’m always happy these days when I go to the Westerly Y to lift weights or for a brisk walk through Watch Hill or around Wilcox Park.

I used to think of happiness as an exalted state to be experienced only occasionally, one that flies by quickly. Maybe the secret of happiness is to think of it as something that is always available. I usually don’t think of flipping a switch when I enter a dark room and having light fill the space as a reason to be happy. Nor do I usually consider the fact that I was able to walk into that room unaided, push a button on a remote and turn on the television .I can clearly see the picture, high-def no less. I can easily hear the sound without the volume turned way up. I can quickly get off the couch whenever I want and get a snack. I am as surrounded by causes for happiness as a fish is surrounded by water.

David James Madden

One July Afternoon

One July afternoon, I was trying to decide whether or not to go to Watch Hill for a run. I was feeling a little tired, but the good thing about running there, aside from the views of the ocean and Little Narragansett Bay, is the fact that you can easily lengthen or shorten your run by going down one street rather than another at several intersections. With that in mind, I changed into my running shoes and headed out the door.

There were plenty of parking spaces on Larkin Road so I took one toward the bottom of the hill. I felt lucky to get this space since it was a beautiful summer day. On top of that, a few of the spaces were taken by hay bales and construction vehicles for work that was being done on the road. Starting my run going uphill would be a good way of determining how far I to go, anywhere from around 2 to just over 4 miles. You usually can’t be sure how well you are going to run by how you feel beforehand so I was pleasantly surprised as lethargy and drowsiness vanished with the first step. I knew right away that I would be running the four mile course.

I ran past the Ocean House and headed to Niantic Avenue where a small hill gives a view of the ocean from Watch Hill to Weekapaug on a clear day. Today was one of those days and I was grateful I had decided to go for a run instead of sitting around the house. My breathing stayed steady and relaxed and by the time I got to Bay Street I was running with a smooth, easy stride. I ran until I got to the top of the hill and felt the exhilaration that comes at the completion of a good run.

I cooled down with a bottle of Gatorade and, after walking for several minutes, got into my car to drive home. It’s a good idea to drive slowly on Bay Street during the summer as some people don’t always use the crosswalks or watch out for cars when they cross the street. So I was not driving more than five miles per hour when I glanced at a woman sweeping the sidewalk in front of her store. She looked up, our eyes met and she smiled at me. How nice, I thought, perhaps she had seen me when I ran past her store a few minutes before. Maybe she was a runner too. Maybe I had looked even better than I thought when I ran by.

As I came close to the statue of Chief Ninigret, two women on bicycles were coming toward me in the opposite direction. As each one passed by me, they looked directly at me and smiled! Like the woman at the store, they were both pretty and there could be no mistake that they were both looking right at me. Isn’t this great, I thought, feeling quite pleased with myself, here I am 63 years old and women still smile when they see me. Staying in shape has its benefits.

With the thought of driving through Watch Hill again, I turned right onto Ninigret Avenue rather than continuing on Watch Hill Road and going straight home. I came to the stop sign at the end of the road. A car coming around the corner slowed down and stopped across from me. The driver lowered his window as he and his woman passenger smiled at me. He motioned for me to lower my window and as I did so, he pointed to the front of my car and said, “Hey buddy, do you realize there’s something stuck under the front of your car?” I put the car in park and stepped out to see the real reason for why I had been turning heads.

I had parked my car just inches from one of the hay bales and then forgotten it was there when it was time to leave. I had started so slowly that I hadn’t felt the bale slide under the front of the car. With my radio turned on, I hadn’t heard what must have been a swishing sound that had caused the woman sweeping in front of the store, and who knew how many others, to look up and notice my car. There I had been, driving down Bay Street like a street sweeper, like an old-fashioned steam locomotive with a cow catcher.

Chagrined, but also thankful that someone had stopped me before I went back to sweep Bay Street again, I dislodged the bale from under my car and drove off. I had driven about a mile before a voice inside my head said, “You can’t just leave a bale of hay lying on the side of the road!” So back I went. I put the hay bale, piece by piece, into the back of my car while considering how the smiles of admiration that I thought had been directed my way had actually been smiles of amusement. I joined in and smiled at myself as I placed the last of the hay in my car. At that point, what else could I do?

 David James Madden

A Constantly Polished Gem

Simplicity is not reached by taking the path of least resistance. Nor is simplicity a matter of ignoring what is inconvenient or avoiding a careful analysis of a situation. We don’t start from simplicity, simplicity is what we get closer to during the ongoing process of winnowing out the unnecessary from the essential. Simplicity is like a closet where we have discarded clothes we no longer need or find appealing from clothes we keep because they still serve a useful purpose and we still find them attractive.

Our faith is not made simple by saying (or singing), “Give me that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.” Our faith is made simple by a lifetime of evaluating and choosing what is genuine for us intellectually and spiritually. One does not arrive at a point in a faith journey where he or she can say with certainty, “I have finally arrived.” Faith is a gem that is constantly polished to greater clarity and simplicity by the application of the mind and heart.

Albert Schweitzer, the German theologian, organist, philosopher, doctor and medical missionary, once said, “From native simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity.” Profound simplicity is not the simplicity of the infant who knows nothing of the world, it is the simplicity of one who has seen the complexity of the world and refined from it what is true, just and lasting. Profound simplicity is the ongoing work of a lifetime.

David James Madden

What Used To Be

For many years, the curved front of the Odd Fellows Building in Manchester faced East Center Street to the north and Main Street to the west. When I reached the c-shaped Odd Fellows during the Thanksgiving Day Road Race, I knew I was getting near the finish line as I turned left onto Main Street. Its location at the top of the hill that looked down on Main Street, along with the nearby Mary Cheney Library, Congregational Church, town hall, fire house, Center Park, Lincoln School and Post Office, contributed to this area being the heart of my hometown.

 I had been living in Mystic and then North Stonington since 1972 when the Odd Fellows home was torn down in 1982. I often visited my family, and so I was aware of the plans to demolish it. Still, I was somewhat shocked the first time I saw an empty space where the building had once stood. I wasn’t sure at the time (I’m still not) what the reasons were for tearing it down, but it seemed that more than a few people in town weren’t happy about it no longer being where it had stood for almost 80 years. Over the years, it had been home to a pharmacy, a soda shop, an automobile dealership, a barber shop, a bus terminal, other businesses that came and went as well as apartments on the third floor.

My father told me that the building didn’t go down without a fight. The first time the wrecking ball from a crane swung at it, the ball bounced off the wall without hardly making a dent. The old building had been built to last by being constructed with railroad ties. A job that had originally been expected to be completed in a day took several days before it was completed. I wonder if anyone who had been in favor of destroying it had second thoughts when they saw what a well-made and structurally sound building it still was.  It wasn’t exactly what you would call a stately building, certainly not beautiful, but it had been part of what made downtown Manchester such a vital area.

It’s surely a stretch to tie the decline of Manchester’s once vibrant downtown area to the destruction of the Odd Fellows Building. There were many factors that went into changing the social, economic and physical landscape of Manchester and many small towns like it throughout the country beginning around 50 or so years ago. But at the same time, I wonder just how different the future of Manchester might have been if someone or some group had looked at that old building and seen possibilities for giving it new life. What if investors had refurbished and modernized it and made it into a new and improved version of its former self? Would that have encouraged other businesses to stay located on Main Street? Would the Buckland Mall still have been built or would the developers have looked elsewhere? Would Main Street then have retained a bit more of the economic and social functionality it had enjoyed for decades if that one domino hadn’t fallen? Maybe, but probably not. The complexity of the factors that go into bringing about transformational societal change can’t be simplified to the extent that I am imagining now.

Still, what would our society be like if we were more inclined to see greater value in old buildings and looked for ways to put them to new uses rather than tear them down because, thinking obsolescence is inevitable, we decide the time has come for a change whether it leads to an improvement or not?  I’m skating on thin ice here. For the past 10 to 15 years, since I’ve been able to afford it, I have bought new cars every three or four years. So who am I to extol the value of old things? And perhaps a society that holds fast to old things would also be more inclined to cling to old ideas about how people view each other because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and economic place in life.

The area where the Odd Fellows Building once stood is now a little park. It’s well maintained by the town and there are a few benches to sit on. There is a well-designed memorial to Manchester veterans who died in the Vietnam War. It’s an attractive place. But it’s nothing like what used to be there, a place people where went to buy what they needed or wanted, to be together and socialize, to live in and call home. What used to be there yesterday is no more and I wonder if Manchester is the poorer for that loss today.

David James Madden

The Ultimate Connection

“Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” - Mother Teresa

When we’re laughing or smiling, others may take that to mean we must be happy about something; when we look serious, others may assume we aren’t happy. But appearances can be deceiving, we sometimes cry at weddings as well as funerals, times when we arrive as well as when we depart. What is there about certain moments that makes us happy, regardless of whether our faces are wet with tears or beaming from ear to ear or both?

It seems to me that we are happy when we have a healthy sense of being connected, whether to nature, another person, a group of people, our inner selves, our work or play. When a person who was on a high school or college team looks back on those years, he or she may do so with longing for a time one can’t go back to. Even if the team lost more often than they won, the memory of being connected to a group of people trying to attain a common goal together can be powerful enough years or even decades later to evoke both laughter and tears at reunions.

Whenever I write something, whether it’s a short story, poem, letter, or a post on Facebook, I often feel happiness because I have connected with other people. Even if only a few people, or even no one at all, read my words, I still experience happiness from what I write because I have consciously connected with emotions and thoughts that I was not entirely aware of before I wrote them down. Mother Teresa speaks about how our efforts to connect with others can sometimes end up in disappointment because, despite really trying, our efforts are not returned. After all, we can’t connect with others if they’re not willing to connect with us.

Mother Teresa tells us not to be concerned when our attempts with others fail, because even when they do, any effort we make to connect with other human beings, will actually, at the same time, be a connection with the ultimate relationship we refer to as God.

David James Madden

The Best of What Makes Us Who We Are

Grace has a lot of meanings. The one that comes to mind first for me is the fluid, gravity defying grace of dancers. The most graceful dance sequence I’ve ever seen was performed by the Nicholas brothers in the movie “Stormy Weather,” made in 1943 and considered one of the best Hollywood musicals with an African-American cast. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKRm6H-qOU) Their grace came from many hours of practicing as does the grace of a pianist’s fingers moving over the keyboard or a violinist’s bow moving over the strings.

In contrast to the grace an athlete, dancer or artist gains by many hours of practice, the Christian meaning of grace is that of a gift, something that one doesn’t have to earn or even deserve. We use the expression “graced by her presence” to refer to someone who is considerate of others, who makes others feel comfortable and at ease. A gracious host is one who lets people know they are valued by the preparations that he or she makes for a get-together.

Aristotle’s quote, “The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances” speaks to the difficult days we are living through in this time of pandemic. None of the above definitions of “grace” appears to fit the way Aristotle is using the word. Perhaps another meaning of grace, found in the phrase “grace under fire,” which means to remain calm in a stressful situation, comes closest to what Aristotle was describing. But why is the word grace being used? Doesn’t grace have to do with beauty, kindness, compassion, gifts? It doesn’t seem Aristotle was referring to any of these words. Perhaps the meaning of grace as used by Aristotle is not a literal one found in a dictionary, but one we can infer by taking the word’s different meanings and putting them together to include the best of what makes us who we are.

If we “bear the accident of life” that is this terrible pandemic with grace, how would we live our days? Would we do so with a noticeable degree of gratitude for what we have even when we have lost something of what we had before? Would we still be able to find some reason to be cheerful when the news we hear each day makes us afraid? Would we still manage to give purpose and meaning to our daily lives when we feel isolated and alone? Would we still find it within ourselves to think of others when feelings of stress and anxiety make us want to retreat inward? Even if these possibilities don’t exactly fit the meaning of grace as Aristotle used the word, they still seem to me worthwhile goals to try for as the days of living through a pandemic go by.

David James Madden

The Source of Our Delight

Art by Ian Newbury

In November, 1959, I went with my fifth-grade class at Lincoln School to Old Sturbridge Village (OSV). It was a gloomy day with rain showers that would have been snow flurries if it had been just a few degrees colder. I have vague memories of walking the grounds with my classmates and going into buildings such as the Pliny Freeman farmhouse, the Salem Towne mansion and the church at the head of the village green. To this day, I think of Old Sturbridge Village when I detect the scent of firewood burning on a hearth or a wood stove. My memories of this visit are vague and fleeting. Images of interpreters dressed in period costumes, old-fashioned furniture and unfamiliar objects from another time in history flash across my mind’s eye as I remember that day from almost 61 years ago.

That visit had a lot to do with setting the course of my life. A love of American history was kindled within me from that day forward and this in turn led me to wanting to be a teacher. When I taught at S.B. Butler Elementary School, I took several classes to OSV over the years. After I retired, I wrote a book of poems, Sprung From the Soil, about the village. In both of these ways, I was hoping to share the happy,enlightening experience I had had when I was in the fifth grade.

The next time I went to Old Sturbridge Village was during the summer with my family after I graduated from Manchester (CT) High School in 1967. Interestingly enough, I worked as an usher at the State Theater in Manchester and that same evening, when I had gotten back from OSV, the movie “Hawaii”with Julie Andrews and Max Von Sydow was playing for the first time. I was greatly surprised to see the opening scenes were shot at OSV. That’s one of the reasons “Hawaii” has always been my all-time favorite movie.

Earlier on that day, as I walked around the village and saw the Blacksmith Shop, the Fenno House and the Miner Grant Store (I can see the hotplate my mom bought there as I sit and write this) I was aware of a letdown I couldn’t understand. Years later, when I wrote about my faith journey as a member of a group of seekers, I described the feeling I had this way:

After my field trip was over, I wanted to go back again and relive the experience that had meant so much to me. It would be several years before I finally did and I still remember the disappointment I felt on that return visit. The magical quality that existed in my mind's eye did not exist in the place that inspired it. I would go back several more times, but it was always as if Old Sturbridge Village was a Brigadoon for me, and I was never there when the magic took place. Eventually I realized that there was nothing significant for me about Old Sturbridge Village except the importance I gave to it in my mind. I have since applied this insight to other experiences in my life, including those I have had in church.

The place itself, no matter how beautiful, peaceful and harmonious,isn’t the source of our delight. It’s how we create an image of it in our mind’s eye that makes it special. The place itself doesn’t have an intrinsic, objective reality to it that everyone will experience in the same way. People might respond to the beauty of a place, perhaps most who see it will appreciate and even love its charm as much as many others do. I’m sure that most of the students I brought to OSV would, if called upon to remember, talk about their field trip there as being a good memory that they appreciate. But I doubt any of them would think of it as I did in November, 1959. I didn’t think of it that way myself when I returned in July, 1967, nor have I ever experienced OSV the same as that first visit in the many times I have been there since. The closest I’ve ever come to sharing with others my trip to OSV in November, 1959 was when I wrote the poems in Sprung from the Soil. But even if I had had Robert Frost’s ability with words, I still couldn’t have taken you with me all the way there. Our only companion when we go to those places is God.

David James Madden