[Magdalen] Wafting Odors.

[Sibyl Smirl]

Are you aware that there are a few fair-haired French and fair-haired 
Italian people?  Or like my uncle (mother's sister's husband) who was 
pure Swede (second generation American, but both his parents were off 
the boat from Sweden) and had black hair. Europe is pretty mixed up 
genetically, more so than it is culturally.


On 10/25/15 8:24 PM, ME Michaud wrote:
> No, it's cultural.
>
> I still remember the first time I saw a northern European guy with a baby.
> I was working in Harvard Square at the time and was waiting for the walk
> light with a young fair-haired man with a fair-haired baby in a back
> carrier. Because the baby was a cutie, I glanced around, the better to
> appreciate his mother. No adult woman nearby; they were alone on the street
> together.
>
> I'd never seen this before. Portuguese, French, Italian, Greek, Asian men,
> African and African-American men were commonly seen out&about with their
> children and grandchildren alone, of course. In France I was often
> impressed by the fact that any man would pick up & comfort a crying
> child. But I'd never seen a fair-haired man outdoors alone with a baby
> before.
>
> This may be exacerbated by our large Irish-American population, which seems
> to separate male and female roles with strict observance. Perhaps Germans
> are the same. I do tend to think of it as a northern European thing.
>
> Times have changed lots since then, of course.
>
> I read an interview with Hannan Ashwari's husband, who stopped the
> interview to make breakfast for his children. The lame American interviewer
> said, "In America, we'd call that being a "house husband."
> "Here," he replied, "we'd call it being a father."
> -M
>
> On Sunday, October 25, 2015, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Perhaps in another life they would have been two of the great chefs.  I
>> don't recall my country-raised father ever cooking anything.  Ever.  Nor my
>> city-raised brother,  come to that, other than pasta au naturele (it's a
>> MacRae thing).
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net