patrick.net
An Antidote to Corporate Media
1,362,042 comments by 15,736 users - Patrick, RandalRay online now
Discovering An Old Friend In Rio de Janeiro From 35 Years Ago
2014 May 4, 1:14am 438 views 2 comments
Comments 1 - 2 of 2 Search these comments
Tenpoundbass
2014 May 4, 4:22am
In that kind of society there is no middle class, just varying degrees of wealth. When there is no lower middle class, and smack dab in the middle Middle class. That gap from sheer destitution and having means, then there is no difference in how rich they perceive them.
Extremely poor people in West Virginia have always considered your average middle class person as "Rich". And something they'll never be.
turtledove
2014 May 4, 4:40am
Isn't it amazing when you run into someone like that? It can be such a small world sometimes. Makes you wonder if she's meant to be something significant to your life. I had something similar happen a couple of years ago. We met this American family at St Stevens Green in Dublin when we were living over there. We chatted for a while. They were moving back to the US (not California) and we had just moved to Dublin, so that was the last I expected to see her. Fast forward four years. We had moved back to California. We were at my son's little league game. I'm talking to this woman whose son is on the same little league team. After a while, we start realizing that each other's stories sound familiar. This look comes over her face and she says, "we met at St Stevens Green." It was almost chilling. What were the chances that we'd not only move to the same city in CA, but our boys would be on the same little league team? We decided that it must be written somewhere that she and I are to be good friends.
I realized yesterday that a lady who I swam with lived in Rio in the 70's as I did. I discovered it quite by accident. She always swims in the same lane I do. She is a lady in her 60's and often treads water. Her name is Cathy.
I over heard her discussing Rio de Janeiro and Brasil. I got curious and asked her if she had lived there. Sure enough, she had lived near the Corcovado from 1977 to 1980. Her husband had been a diver for an oil company. We had a lively conversation. We talked about the wonderful things in Rio and the sad things like the favelas, street robbers, the rough police ("I would rather have ten years in prison than one night in the police station"-an old Rio saying) and the DOPS. When we started to discuss Lord Jim's Pub, a light went on in her brain. After 34-35 years she remembered me! I was touched.
Most interesting, I mentioned the point that our Rio experience showed us what it was like to live in a society where people are either upper middle class and wealthy or poor. She got very serious and told me that the US was going the same way. I agreed with her.