Exits and Entrances: A Journey Through Many Landscapes: by Dave Jaffe; Chapter Six- Part Three.

    Chapter Six continued: Part Three.


      During times between doing primal therapy, I started to read about fetishism. I realized that my mother or the nurses I had when very young, hadn't held me a lot. The insights that came from primal therapy and my readings, at time overwhelmed me. I sat for hours in my two tiny rooms in Kitsilano amazed at what I was learning about myself.
      Yet Eric didn't only steer me into primal therapy. He turned me onto journalism and how to write easy-to-read stories.  "Dave, you have to learn journalism," he told me after I"d written a piece for a local paper. "What you're writing, nobody will read. It's too academic."
     On Eric's advice, I borrowed a book from the library by Rudolf Fleisch, who wrote the post-Sputnik best seller called "Why Ivan Can Read, And Johnny Can't'. Fleisch, who was born in Austria, set out in easy-to-read prose the way to writing well.
     Use quotations, he said. Cut down big words into much smaller ones. Look for anecdotes that express the theme of the story you're writing. Use active verbs, not passive ones. From December 1975 to the spring of 1976, I studied Fleisch's book for days on end. And once I finished Fleischs work I  borrowed books on journalism from the library.
    As the rain poured down outside, I slowly shrugged off the know-it-all ideas that I'd picked up at McGill University. "I know nothing," I told my friends. "I've got to start learning all over again."
    Eric also told me how to get welfare. My savings from teaching, writing and government grants, have shrivelled down to nearly nothing.  I sure wasn't going to borrow money from friends or my family like my dad had in England. "Never take the dole, or welfare," my father said to me years ago. I shrugged off such advice. I had to survive.
    So on one morning in 1977 I went to the nearest welfare office and ended up with a $160 cheque every month. The financial aid worker at the office classified me as 'employable' even though I could only walk six or seven blocks a day. And I needed crutches to even do that distance.
     Still, liviing on $160 a month sure looked better than sleeping on the street.
   At that time,   Eric was a hippie who filled me in on his own past. He had  led big demonstrations in the 1960's and 1970's against the Vietnam War, unrestricted urban development, police brutality and punitive drug policies. Eric starred as a witness in the judicial inquiry into the 1971 Gastown Riot, where police had beaten up dozens of demonstrators protesting anti-marijuana laws. As a hard core politico, I had at times scorned the hippies. Now thanks to Eric I realized that many hippies had shown great bravery and daring. Eric taught me other lessons too.
     As I told people later, "Knowing Eric was a growth experience." For a time he was my guru.