JAMES MADDEN 1932 - 2019 RIP

I had met Jim before in Yelapa, but we only became friends during the weeks that I spent in Maria’s house in Sausalito, CA. That was in the Nineteen Eighties.
Jim would pick me up on Sunday mornings, and off we went, most often to the foot of Mt Tam, in Marin County.
Though younger than him, I had difficulty keeping pace with the tanned, athletic Californian with his open face, long legs and tireless energy for nature hikes ... and endless talk.

Later on, in Yelapa, we would walk up river to the main waterfall, and back! But sometimes he went ahead alone, to return, rather smugly, to where I was still puddling around in the placid waters of the Second Crossing....

James Madden grew up on a farm in rural Iowa, the likely source of his love for nature and country living.
From as long as he could remember he was in conflict with his father, whom he also referred to as his stepfather, — isn’t it one of the world’s oldest stories, the son rising up against the father???

When he was nine years old, the family moved to Davenport, Iowa, where Jim finished elementary school and high school, before he was drafted into the U.S. army.

This was the time of Korea, the early fifties. He was stationed near Boston, but was never sent to the Front, where the ugly war still raged on. Left the army, got married, had a daughter, worked for a large company as a sales representative. “A dull life ,” was his comment on that period. But the separation from his daughter also left a wound that never healed.

At loose ends, and a bachelor once again, he joined the Peace Corps. After arriving in rural Guatemala, where he spent two years working with the local Indians, his life would never be the same again.

Back in Boston, or was it Milwaukee, Wisconsin? he got into his car, filled it with his scant belongings, headed westward, and drove straight to L.A.
Questioned about this, he said that he needed to be near the Ocean. He never looked back, especially once he started spending his summers in Mexico.

Having discovered Yelapa, and the Indian culture of the Huicholes in neighboring Nayarit, he set himself to learning the Huichol language and immersed himself in their way of life, finding in it many of the parameters that would guide him for this, the second phase of his long life.

He and Maria met at San Francisco State, the two of them working towards a Master’s degree in English Literature. Following their graduation, they both taught English, Maria at Santa Rosa State College, and Jim at City College, San Francisco.
Maria quit early on, but Jim stayed until his retirement in 1996, at which point he settled in Yelapa permanently.

What else comes to mind when I think about Jim?
The rattling noise of the manual typewriter, week after week, during the years in his own Casa, which he built right next to Casa Vieja. Click-click, click-click, all day long, till it was time for sunset, a beer, and a toke.
Whatever happened, Jim??? to the thousands of pages that you typed up there on your tapanka??

Swimming across the Bay from Casa Vieja and then back again,
Jim ahead of me , but keeping an eye on his mate— except when I once lost him near the beach, and as he later explained, “well, there were a lot of pangas, it looked dangerous, so I ducked over to the right ....” “Oh, so you ducked, and left me...?” All I got was his broad smile, a bit mischievous. That too was Jim.

His get-togethers over a toke with Bob Dylan, who spent one long Yelapa summer in a casita of Mickey Shapiro’s.....

Talking about having a smoke....Here is a story that Jim told me last year, following the ceremony for Byron.
Jim had brought down some grass. Some sin seminal which he got from friends in Sonoma County, and crossed with that into Mexico in his truck. It was really good weed, said Jim who knew what he was talking about, for he had already smoked some of it on his way down from San Francisco to Puerto Vallarta.

It was a summer afternoon in Byron’s Garcia house, the one right above the ocean rocks. “We were sitting in deck chairs right next to the patio, and a lightning storm started,” said Jim. “We had just had a couple of puffs on a joint, when a lightning bolt struck the stone patio not more than five meters away. We could see nothing but white light, and our bodies were shaking like mad.”
“When we could see each other again, Byron chuckled and said, ‘Jesus Jim, that’s the most powerful shit I ever toked.’”
A note: They spent the next hour sitting in the water of the ocean in order to stop trembling .

Here is one last anecdote, for already I have been bending your ears for too long.....
Jim had an ex girlfriend in Puerto Vallarta, who got into trouble with the law. Whatever it was? she served two years in prison, leaving behind two children at home. Although she and Jim had not been an item for years, Jim made sure that for 24 months the rent was paid and the kids fed. Generous to a fault. That too was Jim.

His major concern during these last few years of pain and discomfort—born with great equanimity—was the love of his life, Maria: that she would be secure and well-provided for.

May the memory of James Madden be a blessing for us all.............................Yehudi Lindeman