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.
Monday, 12 September 2016
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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