Chapter 12 - Part Two.
"Stuff happens," Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. Secretary of State said after he and other members of President George W. Bush's government had launched the disastrous invasion of Iraq. You can say the same thing about the human body as it ages: Stuff happens.
As you move into your late 60's, diseases stalk you. A short painful heart attack can end your days on earth really quickly. A massive stroke can shut off blood to your brain and you die. Ever active cancer cells eat away at your bones, your glands like your prostate or your breasts or your colon. At last weakened by the struggle to fend off cancer, your body gives up and you're gone.
Often long before life's end, diseases of old age ravage your body. Have you ever heard of shingles or 'herpes zoster' as biologists call it? This viral disease often attacks aging people who've had chicken pox when they were young. One man who was hit by this disease said after he got it, "I can only sleep for an hour-and-a-half at a time. My chest and back are inflamed and the pain is something else." He died a few years later.
Another man who's in his 70's, can barely speak. He's got Parkinson's disease,a disease that causes his muscles to freeze up and gives off tremours that shake his body from time to time. He can't speak too well and often slurs his speech when he talks. Linda Ronstadt has given up singing," someone told me recently. "She's got Parkinson's." Then there's other diseases like Alzheimers etcetra etcetra. The list of diseases in old age is endless.In a few years I will be gone, but probably not after passing through a painful exit to death.
As my father used to say quoting from the Bible, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." You can see death as the final injustice because you can't avoid it. Or you can see it as the great equalizer because everyone, rich middle class and the poor will all die.
Yet as I reflect on my coming death I look back and realize I've been incredibly lucky. I now believe that luck above all is the key to good fortune. Conside the following. If the British Air Force hadn't repelled the Nazi Air Force in the summer of 1940, my parents would both have died as German troops would have landed in Britain and conquered it. I would never have been born. "Never in the field of human history," intoned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "have so many owed so much to so few." The Allies won World War Two. If they'd have lost it, I would have been gassed in a German concentration camp.
Though my parents overspent foolishly from their marriage in 1938 to 1950, my early relatively affluent childhood gave me a head start and even a lead on many of my contemporaries. My mother and father were in many ways responsible parents. Donald Winnicott the British psychiatrist said that the good mother was the greatest gift that civilization had. And my mother was a good mother. She sacrificed herself to her family. Also I spent my youth before the rise of heroin, cocaine and amphetemines. My youth was lived free of drugs.
At the same time so-called 'miracle drugs' like streptomycin, the polio vaccine and penicillin, that came onstream in my childhood and youth, spared from the scourges of many diseases like polio and tubercolosis.
Meanwhile during the 1950's to the 1990's, governments all across Canada created many social programs that saved my life. Private companies invested heavily and the Gross National Product often grew massively at a rate of 3 to 4 per cent a year. Jobs were plentiful. To-day the Canadian G.N.P. limps along at barely one per cent annually.
I now realize that adjusted for inflation I have probably cost the Canadian taxpayers over $900,000. "Anatomy is destiny," Sigmund Freud said. Yet this isn't true. "Geography is destiny. If I'd have been born and lived in any of the poor countries around the world, I'd have passed away years ago.
My life will soon end. The first part of my life was dogged by poverty, deaths and disability. The second half of my life, that is the last 37 years, have on the whole been very good. So ends the story of my life.
Monday 26 September 2016
Friday 23 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - Chapter 12 - Part One by Dave Jaffe
Chapter 12 - Part One
After I'd had a semi-mystical experience on the Gorge road in Victoria, I felt that I'd been given a lift I sorely needed. For I was now an old man. I w-as after all, 66 years old in 2008.
"You're a spring chicken," Galia Chud a woman in her 80's told me when I said I was old. Still I felt worn out at times. My long time friend Dick Prinsep died in 2008 from stomach cancer. An allergy racked my body. and caused me to sweat and cough. I was now completely bald. Creases and lined dug themselves into my face.
A mole on my right forehead turned into a basal cell carcinoma. And tiredness stalked my body and ended my day in the late afternoon. "The cracks of old age," writes biographer Hilary Spurling, "are infirmities, ailments, setbacks, loneliness, despondency and fear." I felt all these emotions in the spring of 2008.
Yet I'd also found ways to escape from old age's downsides. When I painted landscapes, the pains of old age vanished. Watching movies that I enjoyed enabled me to forget my declining health. I travelled long and short distances to many of Vancouver's lovely parks and felt incredibly happy in these green oases. I continued to read art histories, popular biographies and sometimes novels. This lifelong pursuit lifted me out of the depression that sometimes hit me.
Still, the death of Dick Prinsep and my exit from the Unitarian Church still hovered over me. An hour or so of sitting on the Gorge Road and looking at the waters shift to and fro,seemed to wipe out for a while all the problems of the past and present. "Now I can go on," I told myself. Or as I told some of my friends, "I've had a born again experience."
I travelled back to the motel nearby that I was staying in. I fell asleep and as I drifted into never never land I felt truly happy. When I awoke the next morning a new day dawned that felt to me like a new age.
Yet this feeling unfortunately didn't last forever.
After I'd had a semi-mystical experience on the Gorge road in Victoria, I felt that I'd been given a lift I sorely needed. For I was now an old man. I w-as after all, 66 years old in 2008.
"You're a spring chicken," Galia Chud a woman in her 80's told me when I said I was old. Still I felt worn out at times. My long time friend Dick Prinsep died in 2008 from stomach cancer. An allergy racked my body. and caused me to sweat and cough. I was now completely bald. Creases and lined dug themselves into my face.
A mole on my right forehead turned into a basal cell carcinoma. And tiredness stalked my body and ended my day in the late afternoon. "The cracks of old age," writes biographer Hilary Spurling, "are infirmities, ailments, setbacks, loneliness, despondency and fear." I felt all these emotions in the spring of 2008.
Yet I'd also found ways to escape from old age's downsides. When I painted landscapes, the pains of old age vanished. Watching movies that I enjoyed enabled me to forget my declining health. I travelled long and short distances to many of Vancouver's lovely parks and felt incredibly happy in these green oases. I continued to read art histories, popular biographies and sometimes novels. This lifelong pursuit lifted me out of the depression that sometimes hit me.
Still, the death of Dick Prinsep and my exit from the Unitarian Church still hovered over me. An hour or so of sitting on the Gorge Road and looking at the waters shift to and fro,seemed to wipe out for a while all the problems of the past and present. "Now I can go on," I told myself. Or as I told some of my friends, "I've had a born again experience."
I travelled back to the motel nearby that I was staying in. I fell asleep and as I drifted into never never land I felt truly happy. When I awoke the next morning a new day dawned that felt to me like a new age.
Yet this feeling unfortunately didn't last forever.
Thursday 22 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe; Chapter 11, Part Five.
Chapter 11 - Part Five.
By 2001 or so, the Unitarian Church of Vancouver no longer filled my needs. I tired of the services, except for Harold Brown's playing of the piano, the choir's music and some of the sermons. The endless quarrels in the church also turned me off. People came and went from the church, as if they were moving through a revolving door. "The church is a half way house," now retired scientist Merva Cottle said. "People come here to solve their problems. Once they solve them or if they can't solve them, they leave."
"What's the largest congregation in Vancouver?" one jokester told me. "The congregation that went to the Unitarian Church and then left it."
In 1999, the church's main minister Sydney Morris resigned her job. Members forced her out and this small, lively but sometimes disruptive woman returned to the American Midwest. Five years later inn 2004, Anne Buckmaster, a tall minister from Seattle, resigned her job. She too had been told to leave after some disagreements. By then we had a new minister. Steven Epperson was a bearded intellectual person from Salt Lake City. He gave the church the stability it had once had under Philip Hewett.
In the midst of these problems I started problems in the church. My fetishism which I've mentioned before, started to fade. Yet as this occurred I started to stare obsessively at well-dressed women. This was something I'd done during most of my adult life. Yet as I aged, this obsession became much stronger.
Any dark or brown haired woman who was well-dressed turned me on and I would start to stare at her continuously. Amanda came to the church in about 2000. She was a thirty something woman who sang in the choir. All I wanted to do was look at her. (Amanda is not her real name). I used to walk near her house long before she moved into her west side home. Yet I kept doing this after she moved in to the area. One day she saw me as I walked past her house. She saw me in the street and then a few months later left the church and her house.
"She left this area and the church because she was scared of you," a church member told me later. "And she thinks you're a creep. You just look at her and never talk to her."
I wrote a letter of apology to Amanda, but this caused more problems in the church as one woman got very angry at me for doing this. Finally I left the church in 2005 after not giving a sermon I was supposed to give. I was glad to leave but I realized that I needed to go into therapy to cure my problem. I found one therapist and then started to do self therapy after I left her.
Amanda returned to the church after I left and told people what I'd done. When I wanted to return to the church just once to hear one of Steven Epperson's sermons, my friend Jennifer Wade told me, "Dave this wouldn't be a good idea." By then I had written an honest account of my journey in and out of the Unitarian Church, and mailed out over two dozen copies. The book was as one man said, was full of "too much information." It was without doubt one of the worst things I'd ever written.
Yet my experience with Amanda didn't end there. After I left the church, she started to walk past my co-op but wouldn't talk to me. She was giving me the same treatment I'd given her. This tall elegant art curator was no fool. She must have walked near my home about seven or eight times and then vanished from my life. I realized that once again I had caused a woman problems and vowed not to hurt women again. I hope I kept this resolution. Time which I'm running out of, will tell.
By 2001 or so, the Unitarian Church of Vancouver no longer filled my needs. I tired of the services, except for Harold Brown's playing of the piano, the choir's music and some of the sermons. The endless quarrels in the church also turned me off. People came and went from the church, as if they were moving through a revolving door. "The church is a half way house," now retired scientist Merva Cottle said. "People come here to solve their problems. Once they solve them or if they can't solve them, they leave."
"What's the largest congregation in Vancouver?" one jokester told me. "The congregation that went to the Unitarian Church and then left it."
In 1999, the church's main minister Sydney Morris resigned her job. Members forced her out and this small, lively but sometimes disruptive woman returned to the American Midwest. Five years later inn 2004, Anne Buckmaster, a tall minister from Seattle, resigned her job. She too had been told to leave after some disagreements. By then we had a new minister. Steven Epperson was a bearded intellectual person from Salt Lake City. He gave the church the stability it had once had under Philip Hewett.
In the midst of these problems I started problems in the church. My fetishism which I've mentioned before, started to fade. Yet as this occurred I started to stare obsessively at well-dressed women. This was something I'd done during most of my adult life. Yet as I aged, this obsession became much stronger.
Any dark or brown haired woman who was well-dressed turned me on and I would start to stare at her continuously. Amanda came to the church in about 2000. She was a thirty something woman who sang in the choir. All I wanted to do was look at her. (Amanda is not her real name). I used to walk near her house long before she moved into her west side home. Yet I kept doing this after she moved in to the area. One day she saw me as I walked past her house. She saw me in the street and then a few months later left the church and her house.
"She left this area and the church because she was scared of you," a church member told me later. "And she thinks you're a creep. You just look at her and never talk to her."
I wrote a letter of apology to Amanda, but this caused more problems in the church as one woman got very angry at me for doing this. Finally I left the church in 2005 after not giving a sermon I was supposed to give. I was glad to leave but I realized that I needed to go into therapy to cure my problem. I found one therapist and then started to do self therapy after I left her.
Amanda returned to the church after I left and told people what I'd done. When I wanted to return to the church just once to hear one of Steven Epperson's sermons, my friend Jennifer Wade told me, "Dave this wouldn't be a good idea." By then I had written an honest account of my journey in and out of the Unitarian Church, and mailed out over two dozen copies. The book was as one man said, was full of "too much information." It was without doubt one of the worst things I'd ever written.
Yet my experience with Amanda didn't end there. After I left the church, she started to walk past my co-op but wouldn't talk to me. She was giving me the same treatment I'd given her. This tall elegant art curator was no fool. She must have walked near my home about seven or eight times and then vanished from my life. I realized that once again I had caused a woman problems and vowed not to hurt women again. I hope I kept this resolution. Time which I'm running out of, will tell.
Tuesday 20 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe Chapter 11, Part Four.
Chapter 11 - Part Four.
After the renovation of Eight Oaks Housing Co-op were finished, a mega project loomed just outside our building. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell brushed the dust off the plans of his friend, former Social credit premier Bill Van Der Zalm. 'The Zalm' as this conservative premier was called, announced in the late 1980's, that a new Sky Train line would barrel along Cambie Street to Richmond, Vancouver's southern neighbour.
Many citizens along Cambie Street and near it, opposed this project. The N.D.P. governments of the 1990's buried it. Yet the new premier resurrected this plan. Despite a sizeable opposition to this new project, the Canada Line project went ahead in 2005. When the Vancouver city council approved the new line, it called for the tunnel along Cambie Street to be bored underground. Yet this didn't happen. Instaed the builders of the line went for what was called "'Cut and Cover'.
The surface covering of Cambie Street was ripped up, and deep trenches were dug to where the building of the tunnels took place. Now huge Komatsus, cranes, and John Deere caterpillars swarmed along Cambie Street. Massive trucks lumbered around the neighbourhood. Noise, filth , potholes and traffic diversions turned Cambie street into a nightmare.
For me, burdened with walking with a crutch, life became very difficult. Bus stops just vanished overnight. "Can you tell me where the closest bus stop is to my address?" I must have asked the project office's information officer at least three or four times on the phone. 35 stores fled Cambie Street as their customers vanished.
Dangers lurked around me and others. One day a huge truck lurched into a pothole outside the co-op and drenched me from head to foot. "I've had that happen to me at least twice," a neighbour across the street told me when she heard my story. One Sunday which fell on an April Fool's Day, a security guard on the project refused to move his car, even though I asked him politely to do so. I tried to move around his car and fell on one of my knees. My left knee started to swell up. I rushed to the emergency ward of the Vancouver General Hospital which had been hard hit by Liberal cutbacks.
Yet luckily my kneecap wasn't broken.
Still, this new project didn't match or disrupt my life, the way the building renovations at Eight Oaks had. "This building of the Canada Line is a big nuisance," one of my neighbours named Dylan said. "But it's nothing compared to the problems that the renovations caused me and my family."
At the same time as the building of the Canada Line went ahead, there came upheavals at the Unitarian Church. These too caused me problems.
After the renovation of Eight Oaks Housing Co-op were finished, a mega project loomed just outside our building. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell brushed the dust off the plans of his friend, former Social credit premier Bill Van Der Zalm. 'The Zalm' as this conservative premier was called, announced in the late 1980's, that a new Sky Train line would barrel along Cambie Street to Richmond, Vancouver's southern neighbour.
Many citizens along Cambie Street and near it, opposed this project. The N.D.P. governments of the 1990's buried it. Yet the new premier resurrected this plan. Despite a sizeable opposition to this new project, the Canada Line project went ahead in 2005. When the Vancouver city council approved the new line, it called for the tunnel along Cambie Street to be bored underground. Yet this didn't happen. Instaed the builders of the line went for what was called "'Cut and Cover'.
The surface covering of Cambie Street was ripped up, and deep trenches were dug to where the building of the tunnels took place. Now huge Komatsus, cranes, and John Deere caterpillars swarmed along Cambie Street. Massive trucks lumbered around the neighbourhood. Noise, filth , potholes and traffic diversions turned Cambie street into a nightmare.
For me, burdened with walking with a crutch, life became very difficult. Bus stops just vanished overnight. "Can you tell me where the closest bus stop is to my address?" I must have asked the project office's information officer at least three or four times on the phone. 35 stores fled Cambie Street as their customers vanished.
Dangers lurked around me and others. One day a huge truck lurched into a pothole outside the co-op and drenched me from head to foot. "I've had that happen to me at least twice," a neighbour across the street told me when she heard my story. One Sunday which fell on an April Fool's Day, a security guard on the project refused to move his car, even though I asked him politely to do so. I tried to move around his car and fell on one of my knees. My left knee started to swell up. I rushed to the emergency ward of the Vancouver General Hospital which had been hard hit by Liberal cutbacks.
Yet luckily my kneecap wasn't broken.
Still, this new project didn't match or disrupt my life, the way the building renovations at Eight Oaks had. "This building of the Canada Line is a big nuisance," one of my neighbours named Dylan said. "But it's nothing compared to the problems that the renovations caused me and my family."
At the same time as the building of the Canada Line went ahead, there came upheavals at the Unitarian Church. These too caused me problems.
Saturday 17 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 11 - Part Three.
Chapter 11 - Part Three.
In the 21st century, problems started to loom head at Eight Oaks Co-operative too.
I had now lived in this place since its opening in August 1982. It was starting to run down just like me. Built at a time when many co-ops were going up, it had like many other co-ops been poorly built. Although not officially classed as so-called "leaky co-op" as many other co-ops were,the building's outside was starting to rot away. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that ran the housing co-op program, insisted that Eight Oaks be renovated.
A struggle broke out in the co-op as some board and rank-and-file members rebelled against CMHC's orders. Other members sought a compromise. A veteran now of past struggles in the co-op, I stayed out of this conflict. Still, I was saddened to see some members of the board of directors leave the co-op. "Democracy can sometimes be a messy business," one political scientist told me years ago. As some board members and others moved out, I realized the truth of her statement. In the end the repairs went ahead. CMHC won the day.
The repairs started in September 2005 and ended in the spring of 2006. Huge metal pipes soon encased our building. Green sheets covered the building's grey walls. Burly construction workers hammered, drilled and carved on the co-op site from dawn to dusk five days a week. The noise flooded our ears every day.
"It was too much for me this morning," Cindy Weeds, a 20 something member of our co-op said in the fall of 2005. "Two construction workers showed up on my balcony at seven o'clock in the morning and just started drilling." Cindy's experience happened to others in our co-op. We also had a tense meeting one night with the head of the construction team who told us that they couldn't fix some of the new problems they'd discovered while fixing up the other problems they knew about.
At last in May of 2006 the renovations were finished. Yet now a new building project reared its noisy head and right close to the co-op. It was another mega project from premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government. And it too disrupted my life and other people's lives too.
In the 21st century, problems started to loom head at Eight Oaks Co-operative too.
I had now lived in this place since its opening in August 1982. It was starting to run down just like me. Built at a time when many co-ops were going up, it had like many other co-ops been poorly built. Although not officially classed as so-called "leaky co-op" as many other co-ops were,the building's outside was starting to rot away. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that ran the housing co-op program, insisted that Eight Oaks be renovated.
A struggle broke out in the co-op as some board and rank-and-file members rebelled against CMHC's orders. Other members sought a compromise. A veteran now of past struggles in the co-op, I stayed out of this conflict. Still, I was saddened to see some members of the board of directors leave the co-op. "Democracy can sometimes be a messy business," one political scientist told me years ago. As some board members and others moved out, I realized the truth of her statement. In the end the repairs went ahead. CMHC won the day.
The repairs started in September 2005 and ended in the spring of 2006. Huge metal pipes soon encased our building. Green sheets covered the building's grey walls. Burly construction workers hammered, drilled and carved on the co-op site from dawn to dusk five days a week. The noise flooded our ears every day.
"It was too much for me this morning," Cindy Weeds, a 20 something member of our co-op said in the fall of 2005. "Two construction workers showed up on my balcony at seven o'clock in the morning and just started drilling." Cindy's experience happened to others in our co-op. We also had a tense meeting one night with the head of the construction team who told us that they couldn't fix some of the new problems they'd discovered while fixing up the other problems they knew about.
At last in May of 2006 the renovations were finished. Yet now a new building project reared its noisy head and right close to the co-op. It was another mega project from premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government. And it too disrupted my life and other people's lives too.
Friday 16 September 2016
Exits and Entrances- A Journey Through many Landscapes - by Dave Jaffe; Chapter Eleven - Part Two.
Chapter Eleven - Part Two.
At the start of the 21st century troubles started showing up at my front door. By now I wanted to forget Montreal. My years in that city now struck me as a horrible painful interlude in my life. Yet people from that city or from my time there, came to Vancouver. One man from my past wanted to live in the city and not far from where I lived.
"Please leave me alone," I wrote to him. "Please find somewhere else to live." This man left Vancouver shortly afterwards and I breathed a big sigh of relief.
Then the B.C. Liberal party swept to power in the B.C. election of 2001. They captured 77 out of 79 seats in the B.C. legislature. The B.C. provincial Liberal party was anything but liberal. The party cleaved to a Reaganesque agenda that shovelled tax breaks to the rich and cut social programs to the bone. "We're going to examine the whole disability allowance program, " vowed Murray Coell in effect. Coell was the new Liberal Minister of Human Resources. Coell tried to strip 15,000 people out of the 55,000 on disability from the disability rolls.
Coell failed in this brutal effort. One woman, the Scots-born Margaret Birrell and the organization she headed up, the B.C. Coalition of the Disabled foiled Coell here. In the end, Coell who was now called by some disabled people "Murray Cruel" kicked nobody off the disability rolls. Yet Coell changed the welfare laws making it much harder for poor people to get welfare. Soon homeless people piled up in the streets of British Columbia.
In the end I wasn't touched by Coell's assault on the disabled rolls. I used my past experience as a welfare advocate to escape being even noticed by the Liberals' attempt to purge the welfare and disabled from getting a government cheque. My doctor John Robinson was conservative but he was also a compassionate man.
This man wrote a letter at my request to the welfare office I went to, outlining my several disabilities."Get your doctor to write a letter on your behalf," Rolf Auer, a burly anti-poverty activist advised me when Murray Coell announced his plans. This advice and Doctor Robinson's letter saved me I'm sure from having my disability status being re-examined by workers from Human Resources.
Yet after this, new problems erupted at Eight Oaks Housing Co-op where I had now lived for over 20 years.
At the start of the 21st century troubles started showing up at my front door. By now I wanted to forget Montreal. My years in that city now struck me as a horrible painful interlude in my life. Yet people from that city or from my time there, came to Vancouver. One man from my past wanted to live in the city and not far from where I lived.
"Please leave me alone," I wrote to him. "Please find somewhere else to live." This man left Vancouver shortly afterwards and I breathed a big sigh of relief.
Then the B.C. Liberal party swept to power in the B.C. election of 2001. They captured 77 out of 79 seats in the B.C. legislature. The B.C. provincial Liberal party was anything but liberal. The party cleaved to a Reaganesque agenda that shovelled tax breaks to the rich and cut social programs to the bone. "We're going to examine the whole disability allowance program, " vowed Murray Coell in effect. Coell was the new Liberal Minister of Human Resources. Coell tried to strip 15,000 people out of the 55,000 on disability from the disability rolls.
Coell failed in this brutal effort. One woman, the Scots-born Margaret Birrell and the organization she headed up, the B.C. Coalition of the Disabled foiled Coell here. In the end, Coell who was now called by some disabled people "Murray Cruel" kicked nobody off the disability rolls. Yet Coell changed the welfare laws making it much harder for poor people to get welfare. Soon homeless people piled up in the streets of British Columbia.
In the end I wasn't touched by Coell's assault on the disabled rolls. I used my past experience as a welfare advocate to escape being even noticed by the Liberals' attempt to purge the welfare and disabled from getting a government cheque. My doctor John Robinson was conservative but he was also a compassionate man.
This man wrote a letter at my request to the welfare office I went to, outlining my several disabilities."Get your doctor to write a letter on your behalf," Rolf Auer, a burly anti-poverty activist advised me when Murray Coell announced his plans. This advice and Doctor Robinson's letter saved me I'm sure from having my disability status being re-examined by workers from Human Resources.
Yet after this, new problems erupted at Eight Oaks Housing Co-op where I had now lived for over 20 years.
Thursday 15 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Eleven - Part One.
Chapter Eleven - Part One.
The Gorge waterway or 'The Gorge' as it's known in Victoria, is a waterway that flows through the city of Victoria. It runs east to west, a sliver of blue or grey that streams out of the Victoria harbour.
I sat on a bench beside one of the Gorge's banks on a May afternoon in 2008. The day's weather didn't stand out from many other similar spring days. The sun popped out from behind spring clouds from time to time. A passing shower sprinkled me lightly with water. The waters of the Gorge turned blue, then grey, and then blue again.
Yet after sitting on a bench for an hour or two, something seemed to hover over me, and I felt some invisible curtain fall over me. I can't say if this was an extra-terrestial force or a spark from above. I saw nothing different or scary. Yet I felt I was being touched by a seemingly divine spirit. At afternoon's end, I hobbled away from the waterway, feeling a changed man.
"I have had a born again experience," I told people about what I thought had happened. I felt I had just put behind me the past eight years. "Now I can begin again," I told myself. Now after that experience I wanted to live in the present and look forward to the future.
When the year 2000 came around, I felt fairly good. I was nearly 58 and though my body was definitely running down, my spirits stayed up. Long before 2000 I'd switched from doing primal therapy to trying Rational Emotional Therapy that was a more mainstream therapy than primal. It also focuses on the present and not the past. After that, I started to meditate every day and this soothed my mind and relaxed me.
I also kept on traveling but the long journeys of my youthful past lay well behind me. I moved around Metro Vancouver and to and from Vancouver Island. At least once a year at summer's end, I went to Penticton, a popular desert vacation spot that lay about four hours east of Vancouver. I was a contented man who was weaning himself away from the obsessions of the past. Yet once again troubles loomed ahead.
The Gorge waterway or 'The Gorge' as it's known in Victoria, is a waterway that flows through the city of Victoria. It runs east to west, a sliver of blue or grey that streams out of the Victoria harbour.
I sat on a bench beside one of the Gorge's banks on a May afternoon in 2008. The day's weather didn't stand out from many other similar spring days. The sun popped out from behind spring clouds from time to time. A passing shower sprinkled me lightly with water. The waters of the Gorge turned blue, then grey, and then blue again.
Yet after sitting on a bench for an hour or two, something seemed to hover over me, and I felt some invisible curtain fall over me. I can't say if this was an extra-terrestial force or a spark from above. I saw nothing different or scary. Yet I felt I was being touched by a seemingly divine spirit. At afternoon's end, I hobbled away from the waterway, feeling a changed man.
"I have had a born again experience," I told people about what I thought had happened. I felt I had just put behind me the past eight years. "Now I can begin again," I told myself. Now after that experience I wanted to live in the present and look forward to the future.
When the year 2000 came around, I felt fairly good. I was nearly 58 and though my body was definitely running down, my spirits stayed up. Long before 2000 I'd switched from doing primal therapy to trying Rational Emotional Therapy that was a more mainstream therapy than primal. It also focuses on the present and not the past. After that, I started to meditate every day and this soothed my mind and relaxed me.
I also kept on traveling but the long journeys of my youthful past lay well behind me. I moved around Metro Vancouver and to and from Vancouver Island. At least once a year at summer's end, I went to Penticton, a popular desert vacation spot that lay about four hours east of Vancouver. I was a contented man who was weaning himself away from the obsessions of the past. Yet once again troubles loomed ahead.
Wednesday 14 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten - Part Four
Chapter Ten - Part Four.
In the fall of 1996 I was hit with sciatica. It left me in terrible pain in my right leg. Also my life was made worse by my doctor who refused to see anything serious in my infirm condition. I was lucky. I found a new doctor who helped cure me. Doctor John Robinson was an immigrant like myself. He was a cheerful physician with a sense of humour who came from Ireland. He had practised in Canada, first in Newfoundland and then in Ontario. Finally he'd ended up in Vancouver.
"You've got sciatica," he told me. "The femoral nerve that comes out of your back and runs down the front of your leg is causing the pain." He advised me to go home and rest. Then he sent me to a specialist.
Friends like Dick Prinsep and Rodger Garbutt phoned me many times during my time of staying at home. Sandy Cameron,, a tall now retired teacher, and the partner of Jean Swanson, came to see me. June Black, an energetic member of the Unitarian Church phoned me often. Suddenly she was gone. A car hit her and killed her on Granville Street. This happened while I was staying inside. I didn't learn how she'd died - or if she was dead - until I came back to the Unitarian Church.
Finally, Maureen Rivington, a former friend of Eric Sommer phoned me regularly. By now Eric had left my life. Yet Maureen and I had become close friends, and her many phone calls helped me connect with the world outside.
Then one Monday morning in January 1997 I got up from the armchair I'd lain in for over two months. No pain ran down my right leg. I couldn't believe it and felt as if a miracle had touched me. For the next four years femoral pain and sciatica wracked my body but never to the extent of my first attack.
"I have come back from the dead," I told Sandy Cameron whom I met in the street a few weeks after the pain vanished. "
"I can't believe it," he replied. "You look so much better."
The 1990's had been a creative but disruptive decade for me. It had been full of ups and downs. Yet it ended on a positive note.
In the fall of 1996 I was hit with sciatica. It left me in terrible pain in my right leg. Also my life was made worse by my doctor who refused to see anything serious in my infirm condition. I was lucky. I found a new doctor who helped cure me. Doctor John Robinson was an immigrant like myself. He was a cheerful physician with a sense of humour who came from Ireland. He had practised in Canada, first in Newfoundland and then in Ontario. Finally he'd ended up in Vancouver.
"You've got sciatica," he told me. "The femoral nerve that comes out of your back and runs down the front of your leg is causing the pain." He advised me to go home and rest. Then he sent me to a specialist.
Friends like Dick Prinsep and Rodger Garbutt phoned me many times during my time of staying at home. Sandy Cameron,, a tall now retired teacher, and the partner of Jean Swanson, came to see me. June Black, an energetic member of the Unitarian Church phoned me often. Suddenly she was gone. A car hit her and killed her on Granville Street. This happened while I was staying inside. I didn't learn how she'd died - or if she was dead - until I came back to the Unitarian Church.
Finally, Maureen Rivington, a former friend of Eric Sommer phoned me regularly. By now Eric had left my life. Yet Maureen and I had become close friends, and her many phone calls helped me connect with the world outside.
Then one Monday morning in January 1997 I got up from the armchair I'd lain in for over two months. No pain ran down my right leg. I couldn't believe it and felt as if a miracle had touched me. For the next four years femoral pain and sciatica wracked my body but never to the extent of my first attack.
"I have come back from the dead," I told Sandy Cameron whom I met in the street a few weeks after the pain vanished. "
"I can't believe it," he replied. "You look so much better."
The 1990's had been a creative but disruptive decade for me. It had been full of ups and downs. Yet it ended on a positive note.
Tuesday 13 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten - Part Three
Chapter Ten - Part Three
At the Unitarian Church I became friendly with Jennifer Wade, a short Indian-born woman, whose struggles on behalf of the downtrodden spanned at least three continents. Her courage sometimes amazed me. Yet in the end her conservative stands on some topics ended our friendship.
I also realized that I knew very little about many things compared to some Unitarians. "I never knew professionals until I came to this church," a very active member of the church once told me.
"I didn't know muac about many subjects," I replied. In the late 1990's I started to study on my own sociology, mathematics, biology, economics, geography and other introductory college courses. If I had problems with the subjects I was studying I just brought the problesms to the church on a Sunday morning. Here, I usually found someone who taught the subject I was studying at a community college or a university.
Soon I enlarged my knowledge of the world quite a lot.
Yet then my body woke me up again and told me to take care of myself.
It started in the late summer of 1996. I hobbled down a hill with a small pack on my back. I felt a twinge in my right knee. Then over the next month or so, the twinge morphed into a brutal pain that ran up the length of my right leg and lodged itself ever so painfully into my right hip.The pain was so great at times that I thought of killing myself. What did I have, I wondered.
"I think it soundsd like sciatica," one nurse told me. Yet the new doctor I had just switched to, kept telling me, "There's nothing wrong with you. Just ignore the pain and you'll get better." Alas, the pain just got even worse. I was soon confined to a wheelchair writhing in pain, especially a night times.I needed a rescuer ands once again someone came to my rescue. Once more I realized that I was a lucky man.
At the Unitarian Church I became friendly with Jennifer Wade, a short Indian-born woman, whose struggles on behalf of the downtrodden spanned at least three continents. Her courage sometimes amazed me. Yet in the end her conservative stands on some topics ended our friendship.
I also realized that I knew very little about many things compared to some Unitarians. "I never knew professionals until I came to this church," a very active member of the church once told me.
"I didn't know muac about many subjects," I replied. In the late 1990's I started to study on my own sociology, mathematics, biology, economics, geography and other introductory college courses. If I had problems with the subjects I was studying I just brought the problesms to the church on a Sunday morning. Here, I usually found someone who taught the subject I was studying at a community college or a university.
Soon I enlarged my knowledge of the world quite a lot.
Yet then my body woke me up again and told me to take care of myself.
It started in the late summer of 1996. I hobbled down a hill with a small pack on my back. I felt a twinge in my right knee. Then over the next month or so, the twinge morphed into a brutal pain that ran up the length of my right leg and lodged itself ever so painfully into my right hip.The pain was so great at times that I thought of killing myself. What did I have, I wondered.
"I think it soundsd like sciatica," one nurse told me. Yet the new doctor I had just switched to, kept telling me, "There's nothing wrong with you. Just ignore the pain and you'll get better." Alas, the pain just got even worse. I was soon confined to a wheelchair writhing in pain, especially a night times.I needed a rescuer ands once again someone came to my rescue. Once more I realized that I was a lucky man.
Monday 12 September 2016
Exits and Entrances A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe: Chapter Nine Part Two
Chapter Nine Part Two.
Philip Hewett an English-born minister towered above most people in the Unitarian church in height and vision. It was he way back in 1956 who pulled the church's members together and gave them a new vision. He persuaded them to raise money to fund a new church on the corner of Oak Street and 49th Avenue.
"I was scared about what woulds happen," one member of the time told me years later. "I had taken out a mortgage on my house to help build the new church. And I wasn't the only one to do that."" Yet in the end everything worked out well.
Yet now in the 1990's Hewett stepped down as minister. A power vacuum opened up in the church and problems loomed ahead. I knew little of the church's history or the history of Unitarianism when I first came to this place in August 1989. Still, for the the next ten years or so, I came to this place of worship many times on Sunday mornings.
At the same time I used my new bus pass that came with my disability status to travel many times across Metro Vancouver. I spent beautiful days in places like Kitsilano Beach, Tatlow Park that was also in Kitsilano, Jericho Beach on the city's far west side, English Bay in the city's West End, and many other places. I came to these spots to draw pictures and soak up the sun.
For the first time in many years I finally felt at home and content with my life. It was a beautiful feeling. Yet alas, it didn't last forever.
Philip Hewett an English-born minister towered above most people in the Unitarian church in height and vision. It was he way back in 1956 who pulled the church's members together and gave them a new vision. He persuaded them to raise money to fund a new church on the corner of Oak Street and 49th Avenue.
"I was scared about what woulds happen," one member of the time told me years later. "I had taken out a mortgage on my house to help build the new church. And I wasn't the only one to do that."" Yet in the end everything worked out well.
Yet now in the 1990's Hewett stepped down as minister. A power vacuum opened up in the church and problems loomed ahead. I knew little of the church's history or the history of Unitarianism when I first came to this place in August 1989. Still, for the the next ten years or so, I came to this place of worship many times on Sunday mornings.
At the same time I used my new bus pass that came with my disability status to travel many times across Metro Vancouver. I spent beautiful days in places like Kitsilano Beach, Tatlow Park that was also in Kitsilano, Jericho Beach on the city's far west side, English Bay in the city's West End, and many other places. I came to these spots to draw pictures and soak up the sun.
For the first time in many years I finally felt at home and content with my life. It was a beautiful feeling. Yet alas, it didn't last forever.
Tuesday 6 September 2016
Exits and Entrances: A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Nine- Part One
Chapter Nine - Part One.
In 1989 my family doctor probed my body and discovered a tumour in my right lung. I thought it might be lung cancer. Yet after sessions in an MRI, my doctor concluded that the tumour was benign. This episode happily reminded me of one of comedian and film director Woody Allen's jokes about aging. "What's the three nicest words you hear before the age of thirty?" Allen asks. "I love you," Allen answers.
"What's the three nicest words you hear after the age of forty?" Allen then asks. "Your tumour is benign," he replies.
Still this incident steered me to the Unitarian Church of Vancouver. Here I thought, in this church complex in the south west part of the city, I could find some spiritual solace. Going to a synagogue wasn't part of my agenda. I no longer identified with the Jewish religion or Jewish culture. My father's hard core belief in the Jewish religion had turned me off the Jewish faith many years before.
"Unitarians are the intellectuals of the churches," Dorothy Sutherland a more orthodox Christian said when I told her where I was going on a Sunday morning. In this church I met many creative people. Boston-born Jeanni Corsi played the piano wonderfully and also composed operas and modern music. The charming Carol Davis sang beautiful songs. The by now senior citizen Harold Douglas Brown played on the church piano every Sunday. In his late 70's Brown stepped aside to make way for Elliott Dainow, who like Brown played many stretches of great music on the piano.
Harry Aoki would turn up from time to time to play his musical compositions at church services.
This church also attracted talented actors like Joy Coghill and her daughter Debra Thorne. Visual artists like Cass Lindsey, Margaret Wilkins, Hal Logan, and Don Slade painted beautiful pictures. The church also attracted many scientists such as Bob Woodham, Jim Black, John Smith and Merva and Wally Cottle.
During the 1990's this church for me truly was a haven in the now fast paced world of Metro Vancouver.
In 1989 my family doctor probed my body and discovered a tumour in my right lung. I thought it might be lung cancer. Yet after sessions in an MRI, my doctor concluded that the tumour was benign. This episode happily reminded me of one of comedian and film director Woody Allen's jokes about aging. "What's the three nicest words you hear before the age of thirty?" Allen asks. "I love you," Allen answers.
"What's the three nicest words you hear after the age of forty?" Allen then asks. "Your tumour is benign," he replies.
Still this incident steered me to the Unitarian Church of Vancouver. Here I thought, in this church complex in the south west part of the city, I could find some spiritual solace. Going to a synagogue wasn't part of my agenda. I no longer identified with the Jewish religion or Jewish culture. My father's hard core belief in the Jewish religion had turned me off the Jewish faith many years before.
"Unitarians are the intellectuals of the churches," Dorothy Sutherland a more orthodox Christian said when I told her where I was going on a Sunday morning. In this church I met many creative people. Boston-born Jeanni Corsi played the piano wonderfully and also composed operas and modern music. The charming Carol Davis sang beautiful songs. The by now senior citizen Harold Douglas Brown played on the church piano every Sunday. In his late 70's Brown stepped aside to make way for Elliott Dainow, who like Brown played many stretches of great music on the piano.
Harry Aoki would turn up from time to time to play his musical compositions at church services.
This church also attracted talented actors like Joy Coghill and her daughter Debra Thorne. Visual artists like Cass Lindsey, Margaret Wilkins, Hal Logan, and Don Slade painted beautiful pictures. The church also attracted many scientists such as Bob Woodham, Jim Black, John Smith and Merva and Wally Cottle.
During the 1990's this church for me truly was a haven in the now fast paced world of Metro Vancouver.
Saturday 3 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe: Chapter Eight- Part Five.
Chapter Eight - Part Five
In January 1988 I became officially handicapped. I was overjoyed at this. My monthly cheque from the government went up $100 a month. Yet this new status also entitled me to a bus pass and a wide range of benefits. Dave Barrett, as N.D.P. premier and his Minister of Human Resources Norm Levi had brought in this handicapped allowance in 1972.
I was so happy to hear this news from my financial aid worker that I thought, I must phone my dad and tell him. Then I realized that my father was dead. Still, as the 1980's ended, I'd moved up the financial ladder a bit. And that small bit made a hell of a difference in my life.
Yet health problems hit me again just before the 1980's ended.
In January 1988 I became officially handicapped. I was overjoyed at this. My monthly cheque from the government went up $100 a month. Yet this new status also entitled me to a bus pass and a wide range of benefits. Dave Barrett, as N.D.P. premier and his Minister of Human Resources Norm Levi had brought in this handicapped allowance in 1972.
I was so happy to hear this news from my financial aid worker that I thought, I must phone my dad and tell him. Then I realized that my father was dead. Still, as the 1980's ended, I'd moved up the financial ladder a bit. And that small bit made a hell of a difference in my life.
Yet health problems hit me again just before the 1980's ended.
Friday 2 September 2016
Exits and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes by Dave Jaffe; Chapter Eight - Part Four.
Chapter Eight - Part Four.
The 1980's was a good decade for me but it didn't scatter only good times along its way.
In 1983 my father collapsed in the early morning. At the hospital when I came to see him he was raving about something. The doctors who examined him found that he needed pills for his blood pressure. Later doctors carved a tumour out of his prostate, probed his 78 year-old body for other ailments and kept him in hospital in 1985 for other operations.
When he recovered from all this surgery he was basically isolated at the top floor of a three story apartment building in the west end. The building had no elevator and this made it very hard for him to get out of the place. This apartment building was just around the corner from the 15 story building where he and my mother lived when they first came to Vancouver in 1966. Now my father cajoled a friend of his, a middle aged man to stay with him.
By now I had forgiven my dad for the many mistakes he'd made in life. I now recognized that I'd made many mistakes too and had caused him many problems also. As the 20th century U.S. movie star Mae West used to say, "I'm no angel." Now in my mid-40's that was my motto too.
Yet his friend was soon overwhelmed by the many tasks that it took to keep an aging man alive. "Dave, your dad is really hard to take care of," he told me. "And he doesn't know how to stay within a budget." I smiled and said that my father's money problems had been a constant part of his life. He was a someone said about people with money problems, "They are cash addicts." That was my father.
In reaction to his way with money I became a real thrifty person who often spent only tiny amounts of money every day. "Jaffe, you are so cheap it's disgusting," one woman told me when I was in my early 30's. Another kinder woman told me that though she had met many cheapskate males, she had never met a man so cheap as me.
Each time I went to see may father in the west end apartment, he continue to grow worse. At last he passed away in early 1988 at the age of 82. For a while I mourned my dad's passage from this world. For years after he died I would trek into the west end mourning his death and my sister's and mother's. Amazingly a few days after he was gone, my financial aid worker from the welfare office phoned me up.
"Dave," she told me, "You now have handicapped status." I was now back on welfare, subsisting on a $450 monthly welfare cheque. I had forgotten that when I went back to the welfare office a few months before, I'd applied for handicapped status. "You mean I didn't get it?" I replied."
"No," she replied. "You got it. You are now officially disabled.Come into the office to get your new benefits." I had now taken a big step up in the benefits ladder. My life changed again for the better.In the 1980's Canada was still a welfare state and I certainly benefitted from this.
The 1980's was a good decade for me but it didn't scatter only good times along its way.
In 1983 my father collapsed in the early morning. At the hospital when I came to see him he was raving about something. The doctors who examined him found that he needed pills for his blood pressure. Later doctors carved a tumour out of his prostate, probed his 78 year-old body for other ailments and kept him in hospital in 1985 for other operations.
When he recovered from all this surgery he was basically isolated at the top floor of a three story apartment building in the west end. The building had no elevator and this made it very hard for him to get out of the place. This apartment building was just around the corner from the 15 story building where he and my mother lived when they first came to Vancouver in 1966. Now my father cajoled a friend of his, a middle aged man to stay with him.
By now I had forgiven my dad for the many mistakes he'd made in life. I now recognized that I'd made many mistakes too and had caused him many problems also. As the 20th century U.S. movie star Mae West used to say, "I'm no angel." Now in my mid-40's that was my motto too.
Yet his friend was soon overwhelmed by the many tasks that it took to keep an aging man alive. "Dave, your dad is really hard to take care of," he told me. "And he doesn't know how to stay within a budget." I smiled and said that my father's money problems had been a constant part of his life. He was a someone said about people with money problems, "They are cash addicts." That was my father.
In reaction to his way with money I became a real thrifty person who often spent only tiny amounts of money every day. "Jaffe, you are so cheap it's disgusting," one woman told me when I was in my early 30's. Another kinder woman told me that though she had met many cheapskate males, she had never met a man so cheap as me.
Each time I went to see may father in the west end apartment, he continue to grow worse. At last he passed away in early 1988 at the age of 82. For a while I mourned my dad's passage from this world. For years after he died I would trek into the west end mourning his death and my sister's and mother's. Amazingly a few days after he was gone, my financial aid worker from the welfare office phoned me up.
"Dave," she told me, "You now have handicapped status." I was now back on welfare, subsisting on a $450 monthly welfare cheque. I had forgotten that when I went back to the welfare office a few months before, I'd applied for handicapped status. "You mean I didn't get it?" I replied."
"No," she replied. "You got it. You are now officially disabled.Come into the office to get your new benefits." I had now taken a big step up in the benefits ladder. My life changed again for the better.In the 1980's Canada was still a welfare state and I certainly benefitted from this.
Thursday 1 September 2016
Exits and Entrances by Dave jaffe - Chapter Eight Part Three
Chapter Eight - Part Three
Howard Ambrose was the person who guided me into the world of doing painting and drawing.
Now I'd always loved to look at paintings. When I was in Madrid in Spain in the early 1970's, on the usual young person's trip to Europe, I was overawed by the paintings of Francisco Goya. The great Goya, ended up as a court painter of the Spanish royal family in late 18th century Spain. I went back three times just to see one of Goya's most haunting paintings, namely 'The Witches' Sabbath'.
Later on the same trip to Europe, I spent a whole day in its wonderful art museum full of painters' works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and other modern artists.In the late 1970's I read many books by the great English writer on art, John Berger. Yet I'd never tried to paint or draw. Then one grey morning in March 1983 I took out a book on drawing from the local library. I did a few of its exercises and then was going to stop drawing.
Howard hobbled into my apartment just at the time I stopped drawing. He rubbed one of his hands through his grey crew cut and said, "Oh, I've got a much better book on drawing than this one." Then he gave me a book from his apartment on how to draw faces. I was hooked. I started to draw faces, then outdoor scenes and then buildings. In the early 1990's I took up painting watercolours.
By 2004 or more than 20 years after I started drawing, I could paint a decent landscape This gift and sometimes torment, opened a whole new world for me. The British psychiatrist Anthony Storr once remarked that the best way to happiness was to take up a hobby. Painting and drawing became my hobby and has given me countless hours of satisfaction.
I became obsessed with the works of the American artist Andrew Wyeth and then the somewhat similar Canadian artist Ken Danby. "Andrew Wyeth?" one stuffy artist asked me. "What do you like him for? All he does is paint the side of barns." Wyeth and Danby did a lot more than paint the side of barns. Wyeth for instance has painted many portraits of older women which many visual artists don't do. In any case, I once said that I would have achieved my artistic ambitions when I could paint a landscape that was similar to Wyeth's, though obviously not as good. In August 2016 I achieved my ambition.
Painting and drawing was another gift from the 1980's and indirectly from Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Howard Ambrose was the person who guided me into the world of doing painting and drawing.
Now I'd always loved to look at paintings. When I was in Madrid in Spain in the early 1970's, on the usual young person's trip to Europe, I was overawed by the paintings of Francisco Goya. The great Goya, ended up as a court painter of the Spanish royal family in late 18th century Spain. I went back three times just to see one of Goya's most haunting paintings, namely 'The Witches' Sabbath'.
Later on the same trip to Europe, I spent a whole day in its wonderful art museum full of painters' works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and other modern artists.In the late 1970's I read many books by the great English writer on art, John Berger. Yet I'd never tried to paint or draw. Then one grey morning in March 1983 I took out a book on drawing from the local library. I did a few of its exercises and then was going to stop drawing.
Howard hobbled into my apartment just at the time I stopped drawing. He rubbed one of his hands through his grey crew cut and said, "Oh, I've got a much better book on drawing than this one." Then he gave me a book from his apartment on how to draw faces. I was hooked. I started to draw faces, then outdoor scenes and then buildings. In the early 1990's I took up painting watercolours.
By 2004 or more than 20 years after I started drawing, I could paint a decent landscape This gift and sometimes torment, opened a whole new world for me. The British psychiatrist Anthony Storr once remarked that the best way to happiness was to take up a hobby. Painting and drawing became my hobby and has given me countless hours of satisfaction.
I became obsessed with the works of the American artist Andrew Wyeth and then the somewhat similar Canadian artist Ken Danby. "Andrew Wyeth?" one stuffy artist asked me. "What do you like him for? All he does is paint the side of barns." Wyeth and Danby did a lot more than paint the side of barns. Wyeth for instance has painted many portraits of older women which many visual artists don't do. In any case, I once said that I would have achieved my artistic ambitions when I could paint a landscape that was similar to Wyeth's, though obviously not as good. In August 2016 I achieved my ambition.
Painting and drawing was another gift from the 1980's and indirectly from Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
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