Exits and Entrances: A Journey Through Many Landscapes. By Dave Jaffe. Chapter Six, Part Four.

     Chapter Six: Part Four


        Eric was a man I met in the early 1970's. He gave some great advice that helped me survive.
 He not only taught me how to write like a journalist and access welfare. He also taught me how to save money on clothes and books. "Go and shop at Salvation Army and other second-hand stores," he told me. "Lots of clothing there is very cheap and very good."
    I follow his advice and not my dad's on this and other issues.  I saved hundreds of dollars going to thrift stores. Now in my mid-30's, I shuttle from one low paid job telemarketing, then to welfare and then to short term writing gigs. I survive for the next 12 years thanks to Eric, the son of a professor now teaching in Davis, California.
     Eric also did one last good thing for me. He turns me on to vegetarianism. This was something I'd thought about for a long time but until I met Eric, I'd never done much about. "Eating meat caused most of the wars of the 20th century," Aldous Huxley, one of my 1960's idols had written in effect in one of his essays. I no longer read Huxley's works and he may have been wrong on this issue.
    Yet meat cost lots of money and some of the books by vegans that I read says that meat doesn't fill you with vitamins or minerals. Soon I gave up eating eggs, meat, chicken, cheese and butter. I wasn't living the affluent life, that was for sure. Still, I managed to scrape by on low wages and welfare cheques.
    By now all the people I knew from Montreal, save for my father, had left my life. I met Dick Prinsep, a shrewd observer of politics and a former meteorologist. We became friends. Dick's socialist politics had outraged his bosses in government. They ended his meteorological career. yet like me, this native of Ottawa stayed in the N.D.P.
    Rodger Garbutt and I met in the halls of Max Cameron High School in Powell River. Powell River is a mill town that hugs the shoreline of the Burrard Inlet , two ferry rides and a long drive distant from Vancouver. This short, gifted native of north-east England, joins me up in the N.D.P. He takes beautiful photographs, paints some great pictures, and like me enjoys the outdoors. We spend days together, exploring B.C. and rapping about politics.
     "Rodger is a great teacher," one of his former students Chuck Young told me. He certainly taught me a lot. I leave teaching but often travelled to Victoria to see Rodger when he moved to Victoria and taught for many years at Claremont High School. These people and some others help me many times. Yet Eric helped me when I desperately needed help. For a few years we remain fast friends.