My Life In Two or Three Short Chapters - Chapter Three

               Deliverance Two - How My Life Finally Improved


            When I was 32 another tragedy hit me. I became handicapped. My knees swelled from chondromalacia or patella femoral syndrome. I now needed crutches to walk and whenever I walked my knees ached.
     I was by now a fully grown man, and a short, stocky, bad person.
     I abused men and especially women. I couldn't control the anger that coursed through me and I was overwhelmed by grief and sadness. People saw me as a person to stay away from. "Oh help me, here comes Dave Jaffe!" one man exclaimed when he met me in someone's back yard. Another man who worked with me as I drifted from one job to another, told me years later," When I worked with you I thought you were crazy and completely paranoid."
      Yet then there came a saviour, right when my life had fallen to its lowest level. Edward, as I'll call this man, was a tall nerdy individual who did three things for me. First off, he introduced me to primal therapy. Then he taught me how to write news stories and longer feature stories. He was teaching me the outlines of journalism. Last he showed me how to access welfare for my savings were quickly sinking to zero.
      Bingo. Ten years after my father found a new life as a salesman, I found a way to survive. My problems were solved. Now in 1976, the second half of my life began. I lived on welfare - at least for a while. I wrote news stories for small papers - sometimes under other names.  In many of these stories I attacked the power holders of B.C. and Canada. "That man's still fighting with his father," one woman I knew said of me. "Only this time he's doing it in print." She was right.
     I continued doing primal therapy and then rational emotive therapy. My anger subsided some and my sadness started to fade. Finally I was grieving the hurts and pains in my life. And for the most part I stopped abusing people, especially women. After learning to write news stories, I took up drawing and then painting. At last I was learning some skills.
      I should point out that I'm also a fetishist who gets turned on by certain parts of women's clothing. I ended up going to prostitutes to relieve my tensions. These visits cost me a lot of money but I had to make them. In my 60's I stopped visiting these women.
       I had a political side too. But in my mid-50's I left political parties and the anti-poverty movements I'd been part of.
      A woman I knew loathed Edward who at one time had helped me so much. "He stole thousands of dollars from me. That man is a fraud." she said. "Fair enough," I replied ."But this man saved my life. If he hadn't come along when he did, I'd be dead by now."
     I am grateful to my friends who put up with me and my tantrums and far out interests. I am also eternally grateful to Canadian taxpayers whose taxes fund social programs that I have lived off. For these programs have kept me alive. Without them too, I'd be long dead.
      This is my life in short and simple words.