The freshmen (in 1966)
- Miguel Fernández
- Jul 6
- 7 min read
In Rio de Janeiro, at the turn of the year from 1965 to 1966, the “entrance exam” for admission to the 3 public engineering schools: UFRJ (the Federal one, on “Ilha do Fundão”), UFF (the Fluminense Federal one, in Niterói) and UEG (State, today UERJ, in Maracanã), until then held individually by each university, was unified (perhaps that was the beginning of CESGRANRIO). It was to be in early January but, due to heavy rains, floods and landslides that struck the then State of Guanabara, it was only held in late January 1966, in places such as Maracanã stadium.
Those approved began classes in March 1966. At EE-UFRJ, we were 400 students divided into 4 classes of 100, all already on “Ilha do Fundão”; our class was the first entirely from Fundão, until then the classes had either begun or ended at Largo de São Francisco and had at most 200 students. Two classes in the morning (classes A and B from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m.), two in the afternoon (C and D, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.), all from Monday to Saturday. The course would last 5 years, 30 hours of class per week! 399 men and one woman (our colleague Silvéria, who went on to graduate in Electronics).
In the first two years, we only knew that we would be “engineers”. The choice of specialty (civil, electrical, electronics, mechanical, metallurgy or naval) took place at the end of the second year.
It had been two years since a military government had been established in Brazil (April 1964). The governor of the State of Guanabara was the competent and controversial Carlos Lacerda. The world seemed to be divided between the so-called leftists (communist and populist parties) and the so-called right-wingers (military, conservatives and “Lacerdists”). As always, there were also the opportunists who adapted themselves to anything and, like a cancer, ended up predominating. It was an ideologically pulsating time. Almost everyone had their political-ideological positions and everything was discussed, “intellectually” speaking.
For the freshmen, a series of novelties, myths, deceptions. A class on “curved vectors”, taught by an older senior student, with such competence that many took notes seriously, with “homework” and everything. Professors who, the seniors said, were terrifying: they failed students out of pure spite! They were Rangel and Oswaldo “Bola Quatro” in descriptive geometry, Fuad Nassim Mellem in Chemistry, Radival in infinitesimal calculus (about him I will write a separate article), the 4 musketeers of “physics”: Madruga, Aimone, Ilmar, and Maia, also known as Kid Palavrão, Andrade Ramos and Francisconi in geology, Zézinho “mijadinha” in vector calculus, and others less voted.
The academic directory, as usual, occupied by the left-wing crowd; if I am not mistaken, the president was a fellow called Balinha (Aderbal?). Few already knew one another (schoolmates, entrance exam prep-course classmates), but quickly, friendships that last until today (2017, 47 years later), began there (it is known that friendship is a type of sexless love, it begins with a smile, a look, a word and then becomes firm).
At the beginning of the second week of class, during a break, a group from the academic directory entered our amphitheater in “block A” and, through a quick speech saying that we needed to organize ourselves so as not to be “manipulated” by the professors and by the school administration, began to command an election for “class representative” (already with a suggestion, who was a former student of Colégio Pedro II whom I knew by sight from secondary-level student politics, AMES, and identified as part of the “communist stooges”). A small group immediately opposed it and, to my joy and surprise, 90% of the class supported it. So as not to run the risk that, in a moment of carelessness, a “Russian remote-controlled” candidate would be elected, we needed to choose a representative right then.
Eyes scanned one another and I remember having pointed out as a candidate a colleague whose name I did not even know yet, with whom I had exchanged about ten words the day before and who also seemed not to agree with the “down-the-throat” imposition by the “professional students” and political-professionals of the directory, of the left-wing brotherhood. From that conversation of 20 words, I knew he was from the interior of the state and was living in the “aloja” (student housing, on Ilha do Fundão itself, in the building where today COPEAD is) and was sympathetic to Lacerda. No one went to live in the “aloja” because they wanted to; it was because they needed to. He was elected and reelected class representative in the following years and, until graduation, in the electrical specialty (I went into civil). It was Renato Ribeiro Abreu, with whom I formed the graduation committee in 1970 and with whom I maintained a long friendship; he went on to become a businessman and, as far as is known, of all the classmates in the class, the one who came to make the largest fortune with his work.
Continuing the reminiscences, there were rituals and a script of traditions to be presented to the freshmen. As far as I remember, in 1966 there was practically no hazing. But there were two “pick-up games” (soccer matches), freshmen-and-seniors with a “crooked referee” imposed by the seniors.
The first “pick-up game” was on a Saturday morning, in April, on the Fundão soccer field, beside the Architecture building (today architecture and the rector’s office). Things became complicated for the seniors because, as it was the first time there were 400 freshmen, of whom about 300 showed up, the seniors had not taken that into account and suddenly found themselves in a clear minority (30? 50?), which greatly calms the “bravery” of certain “jerks”, who turn what should be a joke into an escape valve for complexes or sick minds. The only extravagance that occurred was, during the interval between the first and second half, in the locker room, when they showed the freshmen the, let us say, “instrument” of the senior known as Tripod, the well-endowed one, who, very embarrassed (he was a very good person), allowed himself to be undressed by another jerk senior to “threaten” to pass that “sword” on the freshmen who insisted on winning the game. I record here, as a tribute, that “Tripod’s” name was Mário Prata, who 5 years later was one of the political disappeared (unfortunately forever).
The second “pick-up game” was the most traditional, carried out on May 13, the day of the “liberation of the slaves”, when, theoretically, the period in which the freshmen were subject to the whims of the seniors ended. It was scheduled for the night at Largo de São Francisco, downtown, with the statue of José Bonifácio as referee. The freshmen’s “goal” was Rua do Ouvidor. The seniors’ “goal” was a window (closed) on the 2nd floor of the old building of our “Polytechnic School” (later called the National School of Engineering). The numerical difference of the first game repeated itself with less difference, but still there were about 3 freshmen for each senior. With the aggravating factor that the general alcoholic state was advanced.
Given the numerical supremacy of the freshmen, after half an hour of throwing the ball against that window so many times, they managed to sink it, breaking the glass and falling inside the building!
Freshmen 1 x 0 Seniors. Parodying our recent national guide, “never before in the history” of the confrontations had the freshmen managed to score a goal, much less be winning!
The senior group, extremely annoyed (and drunk, because everyone was drinking, freshmen and seniors indistinctly), filled themselves with pride, conferred and drew up a surprising strategy so as not to lose the game. One of them, I believe it was one from the 3rd or 4th year called Décio Lefèvre (from “COMENE”, which was the Right-wing political group), went to get his car, an imported and not very new Chevrolet BelAir, but a dream for any one of us, and entered the field (Largo de São Francisco, remember) at speed, braked with the tires screeching, while two or three seniors (from “CI”, which was the left-wing political group) who had gone to get the ball on the 2nd floor (it must have been humiliating), got into the car and Décio, in a dash, miraculously without running anyone over, entered Rua do Ouvidor with the ball inside the car. The “referee” blew for goal, Décio reversed back to the center of the square, again without hitting any freshman, although trying (God protects drunks both passively and actively, was the axiom that remained). The “referee” blew again, Décio accelerated once more, entering Rua do Ouvidor with the ball inside the car, the referee marked another goal and ended the match at that 2 x 1, especially because the police had just arrived and, suddenly, everyone vanished. After all, student, at the time, was synonymous with subversive, whether left-wing or right-wing. The police and the military first beat and then asked questions (when they asked). Many people became leftists because of this procedure.
In the dispersal, I and a group (I remember the Maranhão native Rogério Nogueira Santos, who earned the nickname Qualira, Narciso Lopes, Almir Mansur, Aribel, Amauri Cunha, Celso Loureiro, in short) still heard: meet at Praça XV!
This meant the famous Real Astória bar (was that the name?), next to the Rio-Niterói ferry station, in the then Central Market (which no longer exists) and went from the ferries to Santos Dumont Airport; two remnants of the metallic structure of this Market were left, which are the Albamar restaurant and a small piece of the ferry station itself). There, under the Perimetral viaduct (which already existed and today also no longer exists; it lasted less than 50 years!), there was also a cart that operated 24 hours a day serving corn mush with a kind of very seasoned minced meat: Angú do Gomes.
Arriving there, the “fags” of the left-wing and right-wing seniors were celebrating the 2 x 1 over the freshmen. We did nothing because there we were in the minority. While the seniors had money to sit down, drink draft beer and eat “testicles fried on the grill” (bull balls was the bar’s famous appetizer), we, the freshmen, standing up, ate angú with cachaça. That is, some did; others not even that. It was past midnight, it was already May 14! We were no longer freshmen, or were we still? Are we still? Who are the eternal seniors?
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