Silvio & I stop in Porto Alegre, on our way to Buenos Aires, in 1981.

After our Argentine bus left the bus terminal, it went southwest down Avenida Rebouças in order to get Rodovia Raposo Tavares or Castelo Branco, I don't remember which. When the bus passed in front Escolas Fisk and CCI, the English school both Silvio & I worked for a few weeks, we looked at it and could see a female teacher doing her thing. It looked like Melanie, a Jewish girl we had met at the tearchers' training course and was teaching her first group there. We waved towards the place but only we knew we were being silly and prepared to get to sleep for the trip would be long. 

At around mid-day on 2nd September 1981, our Argentine bus stopped in downtown Porto Alegre, and we had the chance to get off and walk for an hour around town... We took as many pictures as possible...  

Wednesday morning, 2nd September 1981.  Only a few hours before we reached Porto Alegre. After having ridden the whole night, the General Urquiza bus made a stop in a resting area from where one could see the island in which Florianópolis is located. It was still dawn and we were glad to step out in the open and breathe the pure air.

When we finally stopped in downtown Porto Alegre, we were told the bus would stay put for an hour. So, me & Silvio went out into the city to see as much as we could... 

Mercado Público (Public Market) is the building on the right; Palácio do Comércio is on the right; the cranes in the background belong to Guaiba's Harbour.

Follow me to the Public Market on the other side... 

I followed Silvio through the crowd and buses... children liked his antics.

Silvio next to a queue of red VW beetles customized as taxi cabs...

Porto Alegre's Bus Terminal - Estação Rodoviária Central... See that fellow's bell bottom flares; he was a little old-fashioned for this was 2nd September 1981. 

Silvio was intrepid in his search to get to know interesting places in downtown Porto Alegre... it looks we made it to the local financial district.

Judging by the signs of Sloper and C&A we must have been in the shopping district. 

a very young shoe-shine boy hawking his trade...

A sandwich-boy advertises he buys old gold (ouro velho). I didn't know gold aged... 

downtown Porto Alegre with both Public Market & Palace of Commerce next to the Harbour.

The distance Silvio and I walked from Porto Alegre Bus Terminal on the right and Public Market on the left. 

Silvio & I at Rodoviária, on our way to Buenos Aires, in 1981

I had met Silvio at an English as-a-foreign-language teachers' training-course in Santo Amaro in early 1981. Silvio had lived in Denmark for a year during 1977-1978 school year, as part of a student-exchange programme sponsored by Rotary International, having learned Danish as well as English over there.  

After arriving back in Brazil he taught English AFL at CCAA in 1979-1980. I don't recall every bit of his teaching career but in early 1981, Silvio was trying to get to work for a different school just as Myself, who had left Fisk Schools and was adrift in a world of my own.

We met in Santo Amaro every morning to attend this training course of a newly-franchised US method given by Paraná, who I already knew, having worked for Gloria, a Japanese-Brazilian lady who was the owner of a school on Avenida Rebouças, opposite Escola Fisk. By the end of 2 weeks, Silvio and I realised we had a lot more in common besides the English language. We both took the same bus back to Pinheiros where he had been living with Elaine, a piano playing lady who had rented a flat on rua Theodoro Sampaio. Actually, they had parted ways and were on the verge of moving out. When Silvio took me there I noticed the flat was nearly empty except for an upright piano next to one of the walls.

To cut a long story short; neither Silvio nor I ended up working for Gloria's CCI school too long. Silvio left after a few weeks and I left a little after that. By May 1981, we were back at square one. To tell you the truth, since I had returned from the USA, in 1977, my real goal was to make my way back there. 

Since now I had a new friend who also wanted to live abroad, I proposed Silvio we could travel together. It so happened that while I worked at Gloria & Paraná's school in 1980, I had met a Brazilian fellow called Edson Rosa, who taught there. Edson & his wife Mirian had lived in Sydney, Australia since 1974. They had traveled the world, and now lived in São Paulo temporarily for they had to go back to Oz in order not to lose their permanent residency. When back in Oz, Edson wrote me a letter suggesting I should try Australia. 

When I showed Edson's letter to Silvio, he immediately took to the idea of flying away half the planet to get to Shangri-la. By June 1981, I had already talked to Licia Espalato Wielenska, the travel agent who helped me get to the USA in 1971 and 1975. Licia worked on our papers to fly to New Zealand on the next available plane. Aerolineas Argentinas flew to NZ only once a month. 

July 1981 turned out to be too late, for Lícia would have to send our passports to Brasilia, to get tourist visas from both the New Zealand and Australia's embassies. We thought we'd fly on the August flight but unfortunately we had to wait another month. Our flight would leave on 5 September 1981, a Saturday morning, from Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

As neither Myself nor Silvio had much money, we decided not to fly to Buenos Aires, but to take an international bus leaving Rodoviária on Tuesday, 1st September 1981, at 8:30 pm. I figured it out we would arrive in Buenos Aires early on Friday, so we would stay in a hotel for only one day until early Saturday, when we'd get into the Trans-Polar 747 jet to the other side of the Globe. 

So instead of saying goodbye to our relatives & friends at an airport we did it at the Bus Terminal... and these are the photos we took that night. The last time I saw my Father alive.  

1st September 1981, Tuesday, at 8:30 pm at Rodoviária: The 2 boys leaving for Sydney, Australia and their Mothers; from left to right: my Mother, myself, Silvio's Mother and himself.

Myself holding Mum & Silvio watching... 

Sandra, Luiz, cousin Dulcineia, Silvio & sister-in-law Clelia Hiroko. 

Myself, Rute, Silvio & his young brother in the back; Sandra & Cícero in front. 

The Gang's all here: from left to right in back: Silvio's friend, Silvio behind his Mother, my aunt Dulce Roza, Ivan Gabriel, Myself, Silvio's young brother, Maria Lucia Martins; in front, from left to right: Sandra, Josué, Rute & Jaime. 

Rute, Silvio, tia Dulce, Myself & Cícero smiling in the back...

Fernando, Clélia Hiroko, Myself, Dulcinéia & Silvio. 

Silvio, Dulcineia, Ivan Gabriel (in the back), Myself, Sandra & Jaime.

Friends & siblings of Luiz & Silvio gathered to say goodbye on 1st September 1981; a fairly cold night.  

Silvio's mother in the back; Rute & Luiz. 

Rute & Ivan Gabriel. 

Pedro, Luiz & Antonio Carlos aka Totó (Jaime peeks in the background).

Josué, Rute, Ivan Gabriel, Jaime & Myself.

Silvio in deep conversation with his brother Cícero while Sandra looks at the camera. 

A motley crew next to General Urquiza's ticket-office on the upper floor of the old São Paulo Bus Terminal (Rodoviária) opposite Sorocabana Railway Terminal.  From left to right: Rute, Jaime, Sandra, Josué, Ivan Gabriel, Cícero's friend who played guitar well & a friend of theirs. 

Jorges, Silvio's youngest brother, two friends & Cícero. 

Silvio, Myself & his Mother...

Yolanda, João, Luiz Carlos & Josué. 

Silvio holds his Mum; my Mum holds my Dad & I hold my hand...

Bus ticket from São Paulo to Buenos Aires for 1st September 1981, a Tuesday, leaving São Paulo bus terminal (Rodoviária) at 8:30 pm (20:30). 

Cecília

 

Cecília, one of her daughters, Maria Lucia Martins and Cecília's youngest son, at Christmas 1999.

Cecília's two daughters, Herself & Maria Lúcia and Cecília's youngest son at Christmas 1999, at her house on Rua Maso di Bianco, in Rio Pequeno. 

It must have been 1962, the first time ever I saw Cecilia; she was walking past our house on Rua Simpatia, 42, wearing her brown chequered school-uniform going to Ginásio Machado de Assis where she had classes in the afternoon; she coursed the 5th year (1st serie ginasial). 

I knew this private school for middle class kids for it stood close to where I worked as a factotum-boy during the day. It was located near the corner of Rua Simões Alvares and Rua Theodoro Sampaio, 2112. 

I worked on the 2nd floor of a small building which was mainly rented by families, except Dr. José Flavio da Silveira Miranda who had made a laboratory out of apartment #9, which looked onto rua Theodoro Sampaio, where noisy tram cars trundled up and down. I had been employed there since mid-1961, first only in the afternoons and as of 1964 onwards, full time. 

Little did I know that circa 1964, I would have the chance to become an acquaintance of Cecília's and eventually a friend. Cecília's father enrolled her a Colégio Maximiliano Pereira dos Santos at the top of Vila Madalena's hill. It was an eerie place for there were not many houses around except on Rua Jericó, where the great Max stood in its glory of being a brand newly-built school for it had just been opened in 1963, attracting lots of students who up to then went to expensive private schools.  

until mid-1969, when we moved from Vila Madalena to Bela Vista and Cecília got married to a man who had bought a lot at Jardim Esmeralda and moved away to Rio Pequeno.  Our paths went different ways until my family also moved to Rio Pequeno in early 1977. 

Olímpia is situated near São José do Rio Prêto... Urupês, where my friend Mariza Beraldi was born is south of São José... just in the middle of the State of São Paulo, Tietê River divides the state into Northern & Southern parts... going deeper south one reaches Lins, and further south Marília & Garça... 

a closer look at Olímpia-SP, where Cecília was born and lived her childhood...

As shown in the maps above, Cecília was born on 17 August 1949, in Olímpia-SP, a town not far from São José do Rio Prêto-SP. Her mother died in childbirth for what I understood or she died when Cecília was a baby for she has no recollection of ever having seen her own mother's face. Her father left the baby to be cared by his mother-in-law and ended up moving to big city São Paulo. 

She reminisces being happy living in her grandmother's house. They had a big family and sometimes they used to take her along when they went to catch birds in the bush and cook them for dinner.

One day, when Cecília was 5 years old, her father came back to fetch her. He had married a girl in São Paulo who accepted to take the role of her step mother. She had 2 more children (both daughters) who were raised alongside Cecília. 

Circa 1956, when she was 7 years old, Cecília was enrolled at Grupo Escolar Godofredo Furtado, a state-government-primary school on rua João Moura. where she stayed at least 4 years. She once told me she used to take a short-cut from rua Simpatia to rua João Moura, crossing Cemitério São Paulo. 

Next, Cecília was enrolled by her Father to study high-school at Ginásio Machado de Assis, on Rua Simão Álvares next to Rua Theodoro Sampaio, at the heart of Pinheiros. 

Christmas card written by Cecília and given to Maria Lúcia circa 1965.

Cecília's handwriting circa 1965.

Around 1965 or 1966, we who went to night school at Vila Madalena's Colégio Estadual Carlos Maximiliano dos Santos started a routine of offering Xmas cards to our school mates during the first 2 weeks of December before our year-end vacation started. We bought cards and chose those we would give them. Maria Lúcia Martins kept a few of these cards for 50 years... and this is the one Cecília wrote to her. 

Leonor Lisbona wishes Maria Lúcia a happy 16th birthday on 6 October 1965. 

João Roberto de Souza 1974-1975

 

João Roberto visiting me at Rio Pequeno circa 1978. 

Clélia Hiroko Miyadara, Dulce Roza Amorim, Sérgio & Roberto de Souza at Rio Pequeno in 1978.

Clélia and Dulce laugh at Roberto's antics... 

Clélia, Dulce, Sérgio & Yolanda Darin.

I met João Roberto Souza when I started working for the daily 'O Estado de São Paulo's classified-ads stand inside a Pão de Açucar supermarket at Avenida Santo Amaro sometime in late 1974. I worked from 8:00 am through 5:30 pm. 

My job was to wait for eventual clients who wanted to post ads at the newspaper. Some days not even one client showed up so it was really slow most of the time. The stand with a typewriter, a list of ads prices and a seat for myself was located at the entrance of the market, next to a florist stand, so I had a good view of the whole place. I could see all the cashiers and patrons coming out and going in.

At 5:30 a driver from Estadão would arrive with his car to get the day's work to take to its headquarters downtown São Paulo. I would always get a ride with the driver everyday for I lived in town, it saved me a lot of time and I didn't have to take crowded buses. 

The driver would always go to Jumbo Aeroporto first to get Bernardino's daily work load and then drive all the way to town usually taking Av. Washington Luiz and then Av. Rubem Berta. I asked drivers to drop me off when the car approached the viaduct under rua Condessa de São Joaquim, for I lived only 2 blocks away. 

Jardim São Luiz, Zona Sul

 

Centro Empresarial CENESP at Avenida Coelho  Aguiar, Jardim São Luiz circa 1975.  

Thaís Matarazzo Cantero 1981-2023

 

The saddest news of the decade: Thaís died on Sunday night, 11 January 2023, after having battled with a nasty cancer since mid-2020.

Letter written by Thaís Matarazzo Cantero to me on 8 January 2006, from Rio de Janeiro.

Myself with Thaís Matarazzo listen to Cristina Costa play pop songs at the piano at Casa de Portugal on 25 July 2015. 

Arnaldo Galdino da Silva with Thaís Matarazzo on the background... 2nd November 2009.