A small piece of culture out back

Walking down Bennington Street to the Wood Island MBTA station yesterday, I was thinking about how Italian-Americans, no matter how small their property or yard, often attempt to fashion some little bit of their culture out of it. As I passed one narrow gap between houses I saw a round wrought-iron table with two chairs that barely fit into the space, and I imagined an elderly husband and wife settling down after summertime dinners for a cup of espresso, with the view consisting of their house, their neighbor's house and a narrow patch of the passing sidewalk.

Then, right next to the subway station, I saw an encased Virgin Mary fastened to the fence overlooking a slightly wider, but still small patch, with a couple plants in the foreground, a pair of tables in the back and, off to the side, twisting grapevines held up by metal poles. I stopped to take a few photos. The brick and iron fence on the right is all that separates this little slice of the homeowners' culture from the buses and pedestrians that stream past 18 hours a day.

Maybe this is true of other ethnic groups -- in fact, I'm sure it is, though maybe it is manifested differently in those cultures. However, I have been in enough backyards to know that the older the Italians living there and the more recent the immigration from the Old Country, the more likely I am to see a little table, some grapevines, tomato and basil plants, a string of lights, a bocce court and, of course, the Virgin Mary.