Pirates and Virgins

Several years ago, two young, not married men purchased and moved into a house across the street from us. They are both hard working and likable. We are happy to have young people in the neighborhood. They have an auto body shop. Eventually one of the partners moved out to his own residence, but their business partnership perseveres. Their dating lives have provided pleasant gossip for us neighbors. One of them has dated several attractive, energetic Latina women, who moved in with him. Their move-ins created some symbolic behavior that made my wife and I smile. Shortly after moving in, the first girl friend placed a small replica of the Virgin on the porch of the house. Their relation went the cycle from move-in to being engaged to differences and slammed doors and move-out. After she moved out, the now ex-boy-friend, installed a flag mount on the portico and placed in it a large pirate flag. The flag, black field with white skull and crossed bones, flew day and night, flapping defiantly through all our changing weather. Several months ago, he became involved with another girl friend. She began hanging around his house, then she moved in. Shortly after she moved in, she placed a large, 3-foot high statue of the Virgin in the front yard. (I have a photo of it in my album, "Shrouds".) My wife and I wondered if showing the Virgin is some Latino ritual that we had never heard of, like the engagement ring, to claim exclusive possession in dating. But no one has helped us out with this. The pirate flag and the Virgin coexisted for months, as the relationship of the couple deepened into washing their cars together, playing with his dogs together, and extended even to her helping him occasionally with his business. Love was in the air and blessed the bachelor pad. Then, rather abruptly, from the neighbor's point of view, the pirate flag was taken down from its roof line perch. It was, instead, moved further back into the yard, and nailed up to a fence, somewhat out of sight. Only the Virgin remains in the front of the house.