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While discussing the potential market for ethnic lawn gnomes with Hattie, Robert, and Jose over breakfast at Sugarloaf I learned the history of the Buddha bathtub shrine. We had gotten connected into the whole lawn gnomes meme after Hattie had been calling Jose, her fiancée, "dude" in an effort to avoid using pet names that might be embarrassing. But after having it pointed out by helpful fellow ski lodgers to her that she kept calling her fiancée dude she changed over in one instance through a stumbled mixture of the two where she called Jose honey-dude. Robert and I thought that the appelation honey-dude would make a good figurine or lawn sculpture. It would look like a plastic bear shaped honey dispenser but would be dressed in trendy gangsta street clothes. But the real question came down to what people actually do pay to put onto their lawns including figurines of religious figures like Mary and Jesus.

Jose, the honey-dude, had noticed that in Cambridge and Somerville he often sees figurines of saints, mostly Mary, surrounded in a half-shell made out of what looks like a bathtub. Hattie actually knew that the half-shell doesn't just look like a bathtub but it actually is a bathtub. Apparently the bathtubs that were standard installations throughout the Boston area were the kind that stood on the floor on feet, often feet looking like talons clutching balls. As styles changed and bathroom technology improved with injection molded plastic tub-showers many of these baths were replaced with space saving shower capable built-in tubs. Most people don't know how to dispose of an antique thousand pound metal tub with metal feet.

The more religious Catholics of Boston, many who were living in lower income immigrant Italian neighborhoods in Somerville, are apt to place shrines to their favorite saints in their lawns. The insides of the talon footed tubs made a perfect backdrop to the shrines of Mary so they dug holes in their lawns to bury the tubs so that the top third of the tub would form a half-shell around the virgin's figurine to protect it from rain, raccoons, and amorous lawn gnomes. They would also paint the inside of the tub to make it colorful to highlight the religious beauty in their yard.

America is a land of new immigrant populations moving into urban centers and rent in the Boston area has continued to increase to gentrify neighborhoods. The Catholic Italians who settled Somerville and planted bathtubs in their yards, have been supplanted over the past fifteen years. One main immigrant population settling around Somerville is the Buddhist Chinese. The Chinese have a long history of gardening as can be seen in their artwork. They are also familiar with the idea of placing figurines in their yards and temples for beauty and luck. Upon finding lawns with a tasteful lawn decoration of a bathtub with feet planted into the ground with the mother of the lord Jesus Christ in front of it, they tastefully removed Mary and put obese but jolly Buddha sculptures into the half-shells instead. That is why if you look carefully into some yards around Boston that you will find a Buddha in a bathtub.

I would like to make a coffee table book out of these rare creatures that are so rich in the history of tackiness. I haven't actually seen on yet or else a photograph would accompany this short historical note. I intend to go on an official expedition by car and to make a PDF based map publicly available of Boston that includes markers for all of the bathtub oriented lawn art. Maybe I can publish it with the money I make from the ethnic lawn gnomes?