Hugs

I see that a woman from Connecticut says Joe Biden touched her 'inappropriately'. Apparently they bumped noses when he hugged her.

As a twelfth generation Connecticut Yankee I understand her shock and horror--talk about 'inappropriate'! In Connecticut, at least among the Yankee element in the midst of the last century, ANY public touching was 'inappropriate'. To be nuzzled by some random male from out of state (and a Democrat, to boot) was a fate too horrible to contemplate.

Things may have eased a bit in the six decades since I left. Here on the West Coast people have been hugging indiscriminately for decades. Like the weather, loose habits move from West to East. I've always tried to live by the rule, "When in Rome..." so, when hugging became normative, I tried to 'go along'. But the truth is, I never got the hang of it. Exactly how much touching is appropriate? How much more (or possibly, less) is 'not'? I don't know, and I suspect that the goal posts have been moved more than once.

My best effort was a Connecticut version of General De Gaulle conferring the Croix de Guerre. I'd seize the departing dinner guest by the upper arms to keep her at a sanitary distance (while yet appearing to embrace her with the exactly appropriate degree of enthusiasm) and duck my head on both sides. I was never sure whether an actual kiss was expected or allowed. I generally confined myself to an 'air kiss', but being somewhat awkward, and uncomfortable with the whole 'touching' thing, I have more than once conferred a 'hair kiss' and (possibly) an (absolutely unintended) but (no less inappropriate) 'ear kiss'.

I understand that this confession has killed my hopes of the Presidency.

One can only wonder at the world before 'transparency", when General Eisenhower was permitted to liberate Europe notwithstanding his affair with a woman much younger and prettier than his wife, who was also his military subordinate. Yikes! triply inappropriate, and even to envy the crippled Franklin Roosevelt, who made history every day, while meeting some nice lady at the hot springs.

Would Europe have been liberated, or the UN founded, if we had only known?