Real Cowboy

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Well I'll be durned!  I lived in Sao Paulo fer a year--1965.  Yer right about that coffe, drinking that stuff would grow hair on yer chest!  It did mine, and I was only 11 years old!! 

JD - Small world!  I was there  '58-59.  I recall passing 'thru Sao Paulo once, but no details.  I think it grew hair on my knuckles ... oh, wait!  That was sumpthin' else!
 

This thread got me to dig out the last of my small stash of coffee from Istanbul.  Windy City Joe gave it to me at the GAF muster, good stuff: you had to go too quick today Jeff; I was going to tell you I was sittin' with one when I called you back.
     And that's the truth.    edited by SHB

I'm glad you had some of that fine coffee.  Sorry I had to go so quickly, but I had a surprise, unexpected visitor.  He's my pard who got me interested in Black Powder shooting, back in 1974 or 5.  We've been friends a looooong time and don't get to see much of each other these days.
 

[Delmonico]

As an aside, I think everyone here knows about Arbuckle's Coffee,  Most don't know what the ARIOSA on the bags stood for.  Well that's simple, Rio South America, The original blend they made was for around the Rio area.

[Texas Lawdog]

It's Good stuff.

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[Steel Horse Bailey]

As an aside, I think everyone here knows about Arbuckle's Coffee,  Most don't know what the ARIOSA on the bags stood for.  Well that's simple, Rio South America, The original blend they made was for around the Rio area.

HA!  I knew!    I think YOU may have told me.  It may have been (or is still) made from beans grown near where I was.  Or mebbe not.

Uh ... after looking at the website and maps, it seems my 51  year old memories (well, I'm 59, but not my memories) are a bit OFF regarding how close to Rio that Vicosa really is.  Sorry.

*******************************

Brasil is a study of contradictions.  Our house was the last one on our road/street.There was a big coffee field on one side, but the National Bird Sanctuary was on the edge of that field.  On the end of our road, they had cleared out some more land (a few acres.)  Then, a jungle started.  Yep - a JUNGLE!  Animals and all.  Pretty odd for a kid from W. Lafayette, Indiana!  And fun, too!  Needless to say, we (kids) didn't stray too far into the jungle, but the "entrance" (really, the last part of what had been cleared for our road) was overgrown with bamboo.  We made all kinds of things from bamboo.

And to tie this up to the "Real Cowboy" picture that started this post, alongwith numerous acreage of coffee and sugar cane, was a fair amount of grazing land for cattle.  LOTS of Brahma Bulls in with the long-horned cattle.  There were many herders who. except for their hat style, could pass for cowboys of our Olde West.  The hand made and tooled custom boot business was in full swing in our town.  I remember getting a couple pairs of custom-made boots for the princely sum of 400 Cruzeros.  A dollar brought 212 Cruzeros at that time!  Don't you (and I) wish you could get a hand-made, well-tooled (read: fancy decoration/carving) for one dollar?
 

Boy, I wish that was still available.


IF interested, here's a Wiki link to the University there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_Federal_de_Vi%C3%A7osa The whole place has expanded tremendously.  The University, of course, was the main focus of town.  There were very few paved streets and mayhaps 2,000 (non-University) residents.  Now it's a real city.  See what happens after I leave a place?
 

 

Enough of my memories ... but they had Real Cowboys there.

 

[Delmonico]

HA!  I knew!    I think YOU may have told me.

I've told a lot of flks that.  Can't remember where I found it, but it does seem right.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I've told a lot of flks that.  Can't remember where I found it, but it does seem right.

 

[WaddWatsonEllis]

When I had six days left until retirement, they cancelled all retirements and I was invited to go play in the sand in the Magic Kingdom ... some folks called it Desert Storm. After most of the war was over, they let us stray beyond our concertina wired tent village and the runway, only to find out that we were on the outskirts of one of Saudi's largest training bases.

(I'm not saying I was old, but youngsters {SSgt and below ...} would come up to me and ask , MSgt Baker, did they use mules to do this when you first started?)

So it was my first assignment overseas that I could not find much good to focus on beside the mission (I was an aerovac tech on C-141s). I kept trying to think of  things that I might enjoy that were arabic in culture and history. Besides the Schwarmas, all I could think of was the coffee.

When we were first allowed out of our compound, I talked another reservist (on the left in the pic) to walk the six mile forced hike in the heat to get to this Saudi NCO Club/Snack Bar combination.

We got there, all hot and sweaty, and I used hand gestures and the little Saudi that I knew to order some coffee from the Phillipino waiter (Saudis were paid about $30K a year stipend; most forms of menial labor were done by a multinational work force ... kind of an indentured servant system).

He got a confused look on his face and disappeared for about 20 minutes.

My friend still laughs at what he says was the look on my face when the waiter came back with a small hot water pot and a can of Nescafe....