Spanish views from a small town

A piece of my childhood died yesterday. Anthony Martignetti, of West Roxbury, died at age 63. I didn't know him personally, but I, and everyone from a certain age up, knew him as the boy running home on Wednesday because Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti day.  The commercial was filmed in 1969, in a North End that was still redolent of working class immigrants, and close-knit families. A North End where Italian was more common than English, and small squares reminded one of quiet corners in a European city. The  commercial shows a boy running home through the streets of Boston's North End, past the Haymarket vendors, past what seems to be the John Eliot School, through probably the Paul Revere Mall, and up a dead end street to his apartment in an old tenement. As he runs, the scene sometimes cuts to his mother's kitchen, where she and others are preparing vegetables and a large pot of spaghetti. Meanwhile, the voiceover talks about Boston traditions, and ends, as Anthony ente...

I remember when I was a little girl that in the month of August my parents would take me to the Italian festivals in the North End of Boston. There the Italian community celebrated (and still does) the more prominant Italian saints. I remember food stands and stands where you could buy curiosities, like a blue rabbit's foot my mother bought me one year. I also remember the processions carrying the saints. The funny thing is I don't remember the street music, but there must have been. Italians are much like Spaniards when it comes to celebrations. They exalt them with music. Well, every time we came here on summer vacation we would go to a local festival and I would be reminded of the festivals in the North End. In the smaller villages during the afternoon there are pasacalles , where small bands or bagpipers travel to different villages of the parish and play up and down the lanes. With them goes the fogueteiro , the man who lights a rocket firecracker and with its noise aler...