Exis and Entrances - A Journey Through Many Landscapes: By Dave Jaffe; Chapter Six

   Chapter Six: Part One


     This chapter is about my journey towards liberation.
      Eric was a tall thin draft resister from the United States. Like tens of thousands of other Americans back in the 1960's and early 1970's, he came to Canada because he didn't want to fight in the Vietnam War. I didn't blame him.
    I met him through Bob Sarti another tall American who was another draft resister, and was then working as a reporter at 'The Vancouver Sun'  newspaper.
 In turn I met Bob through his wife Marilyn, a dark-haired intense woman who grew up in the northeast of the U.S.  Bob came from New York City, while Eric spent his youth in California. Like me, Marilyn was a member of the New Democratic Party.
    By the early 1970's I had joined the New Democratic Party. Now I would go around telling people, "I'm a social democrat who's a Jew. I still have doubts about Israel but I don't want to see it vanish. I also support Quebec's right to separate from Canada." These were not N.D.P. policies.
    Naturally I got into many arguments with many kinds of people especially with Maoists, anarchists and right wingers. One man who saw me in Bob Sarti's back yard cried out loud, "Help me! Here comes Dave Jaffe." In short I was a younger left wing version of my father. My socialist beliefs were the counterpart to his faith in the Jewish religion.
     Eric and Bob Sarti were anarchists. They admired the writings of the American anarchist Murray Bookchin. Eric still thought he could do some good in the N.D.P. Anyway Eric joined the N.D.P. in the provincial riding of Vancouver-Burrard which was the riding I was in too. Eric started showing up where I lived and sometimes where I worked at the Canada Manpower office in downtown Vancouver. Here I lasted about eight months and caused many problems.
     "You were crazy back then," Bob Laughlin, one of my co-workers told me. He was right. Bob was a big bearded native of Ottawa. He left Canada Manpower to do primal therapy. At the time many people made fun of Arthur Janov and his book 'The Primal Scream'. Yet I read the book and thought that Janov's primal therapy could help me. Bob thought so too. Eric also preached the virtues of the therapy and told me it could help cure my problems.
    So on one cloudy November morning in late 1975 Eric led me into a padded room off East Hastings Street  and said to me quietly, "Fell Dave. Just feel your pain, your anger and your sadness." This was the beginning of my journey towards  self-understanding.