Nino & Me

I met Nino in early 1968, when both of us served the Brazilian Army at São Paulo's CPOR (Centro de Preparação de Oficiais da Reserva) on Rua Alfredo Pujol, in Santana.  We served as a soldiers and started our stint in the Army in the first days of January; I served as a Nurse and Nino as an Infantry soldier. We soon became fast friends during and after we left the barracks. Sometimes we stayed apart from each other for a few months but we always came back together again. 

Some time after we left the Army, I made known to Nino I had a plan to travel abroad to live in the USA. Nino jumped at the idea with passion. Actually, he told me his family had been on the verge of moving in with Portuguese relatives of theirs who lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts when, circa 1964, rumours abounded in rightwing circles Brazil was about to become a Communist country following the example of Cuba with its revolution of 1959. 

Nino hailed from a conservative, Presbyterian family of Portuguese extraction. Nino's real name was Antonio Gonçalves Filho. His nome-de-guerre at the barracks was Soldier Filho. His mother Jacira, was the guardian-of-the-faith in the family. I met her a few times and I thought she was a true Calvinist with a religious bias.  

I ended up traveling to the New York, USA by myself on 1st October 1971. Nino followed me four months later having directed his feet to San Francisco, California, where he was the guest of José Luís, a Spanish young man he had met in São Paulo earlier in 1971, who was on his way to settle in Northern California.   

I think the biggest thing I ever learned from Nino - and I learned a lot of things from him - was to buy me a cassette tape recorder - which had been introduced in the market recently (1971) and tape songs straight from radio stations instead of spending hard-earned cash buying vynil records which were expensive and difficult to carry around. 

Paribar at Praça Dom José Gaspar was Nino's favourite hangout.

Songs that remind me of Nino:

1. 'Woman, woman' (Garry Puckett & Union Gap); 

2. 'Soulful strutt' 1969 (Young-Holt Unlimited); 

3. My cherie amour - Stevie Wonder 

SAN FRANCISCO:

1. Horse with no name - America

2. Heart of gold - Neil Young 

3. Doctor my eyes - Jackson Browne

4. Betcha by Golly wow - Stylistics

5. Diary - Bread

6. Day dreaming - Aretha Franklin

7. Tumbling dice - Rolling Stones

8. Sylvia's mother - Dr Hook & Medicine Show

 9. Suavecito - Malo 

10. I saw the light - Todd Rundgren

11. I'll take you there - Staple Singers 

12. Taxi - Harry Chapin 

13. Walking in the rain with the one I love - Love Unlimited Orchestra 

14. Morning has broken - Cat Stevens

15. I've been lonely for so long - Frederick Knight

16. Mister, can't you see? - Buffy Sainte Marie 

17. Last night I didn't get to sleep at all - 5th Dimension 

18. Look what you done for me (Al Green) 

19. It's too late to turn back now - Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose

20. Brandy (You're a fine girl) - Looking Glass

21. Me and Julio down by the school yard - Paul Simon

22. I need you - America 

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER in Queens & Newark 

1. Everybody plays the fool - Main Ingridient

2. Candy man - Sammy Davis, Jr.

3. Black and white - Three Dog Night

4. Go all the way - Raspberries 

5. Saturday in the park - Chicago  

6. Listen to the music - Doobie Brothers 

7. Good time Charlie's got the blues - Danny O'Keefe

8. I'm stone in love with you - Stylistics

NOVEMBER  

1. It never rain in Southern California (Albert Hammond)

3. If you don't know me by now - Harold Melvin & Blue Notes

2. Operator (That's the way it feels) - Jim Croce

1973 - 1974 

 

1. 'You make me feel brand new' 1974 (Stylistics); 

CPOR at Rua Alfredo Pujól, in Santana. 

CPOR in the 1940s without those hideous sentry boxes at the entrance.

Pari Bar at Praça Dom José Gaspar was a favourite place with Nino in 1968, 1969. 

First Presbyterian Church on Rua Nestor Pestana in São Paulo. That was the church Nino used to go when he was a child in the 1950s.

1st Presbyterian Church on the process of being dwarfed by a high-rise building. 

Rua Nestor Pestana.