Exits and Entrances A Journey Through Many Landscaped by Dave Jaffe; Chapter Four - Part Two

     Chapter Four - Part Two

       In the summer of 1967, my sister Valerie was already dead. My mother was dying. In between those two traumatic events one of my favourite musicians, John Coltrane died at the age of 40. This wonderfully talented African American played the saxophone in ways that entranced me. Now he too passed away. I didn't grieve all these deaths enough. I should have. Instaed I enrolled at the University of British Columbia to be a teacher, a job I knew I wouldn't like.
     Already in Montreal I'd dropped out of Macdonald Teacher's College two years in a row. Still, I trudged on trying to be a teacher since there seemed to be no other choice. One final death remained. My cousin, one of my father's brother Ted, died at the age of 21. It happened while my father was visiting England in December. I had never felt alone as in that month.
    I started to shake and I headed off to a doctor for a cure. He gave me valium and for a while I became a valium addict, a devotee of this tiny yellow pill.
    "What a drag it is getting old," sang Mick Jagger of the  Rolling Stones in the Stones' song 'Mother's Little Helper'. "If you're not really ill/ There's this little, yellow pill". To compound my problems in those days of sadness, troubled people swirled around me or came visiting. Stan from Montreal rented a room near the Haro Street apartment where I was living with my father. He enrolled in the Faculty of Education like I did. Yet then he dropped out of his courses and slept in every day.
    Alan a very nervous young man, showed up in Vancouver. He too came from Montreal. Alan got arrested in  student sit-in at Simon Fraser University up on Burnaby Mountain. "I want to go back to the metropolis, and find a job," Alan said." I don't want to be stuck out here in the hinterland." Alan's mood didn't improve as his trial  strung out for months on end.
     Then there was Mike, a talented musician who had nervous problems. "That man is a genius on the guitar, but a child at life," a woman who knew Mike said. Mike's mood swings added to my torment. His partner Lori whom I called "Chappie" saved him from self-destruction.
    Finally, Ted Newman, a former classmate of mine in Northmount High showed up to see me. He brought his wife Robyn and his baby daughter Galen along. Ted had had his problems in the past. But now he seemed very steady, and compared to me and my other friends, he was the sanest of us all.
     And then there was my dad.