~Photo by William Tauro

Aureo Santos a thirty-four year resident of Somerville stands next to what remains of his charred 1972 Ford Grand Torino, a well recocognized, familiar neighborhood icon that he has owned for the last thirty-two years! At 8am on the Monday before Christmas, Aureo's vintage automobile that used to ride around the streets of the Ville up to last week bearing his name "AUREO" on his Massachusetts vanity plates burned to a crisp in his Church Street driveway due to an electrical short. Aureo has much praise for the Somerville Police and Fire departments who showed up to extinguish the blazing automobile within minutes before the fire could have had a chance to spread to his or his neighbors homes. That he said was the greatest gift of all.