Some say patio, others say piazza

When we were young kids, I recall my mother organizing her flower pots on the back porch getting them ready to put out for the season.  Of course, she had kept them in from the harsh winter weather, so they would come back on their own in the spring.  She was among the first ecology minded individuals to grace her generation, or perhaps it was simply a behavior she acquired during the Great Depression.  Regardless, she frequently used these opportunities to enlighten us about life through her peripatetic teaching style.  During one of those lessons, she graced us with her knowledge of the Roman plazas or Italian piazzas.

For as long as I can remember, we referred to the back porch as the back patio.  On this particular day, however, she decided that we needed to know what a piazza was, only she pronounced the double zz softly, more like an "s" sound.  From that day on, the back porch or patio became the the back piazza.  For many years, I just thought that she had her own way of saying the porch which was different than what we originally had learned, but over time, what she really was doing was educating us about life.

While sightseeing in Italy, I had the ocassion to visit a number of those famous "piazzas", only this time I tried to pronounce it in my best Italian accent, much like Stefano would do.  As I wander the streets, drive the roads, and ride the rails all over northern Italy, I find myself smiling over the informal manner of education my mother took  with all of us when we were younger.  It has served us well over the years, and to that I toast my mother with a nice glass of red wine, "saluti".  Ciao!