French gestures

Jeffry's post on Greek hand gestures so inspired me that here are a few French

Sarkozy is pulling his eye the equivalent of 'yeah, right like I believe that'

Chirac is showing us a 'calm down' gesture

and this one is 'off your rocker'

My friend Earl Evleth passed away in Paris last night. He was an American research doctor, who moved to Paris forty years ago, with his wife Donna. I met Earl and Donna, some fifteen years ago online through the newsletter they wrote faithfully every two weeks. Their newsletter documented the trials and prison experience of Barry, an American, who was arrested as a drug mule at Charles de Gaulle airport and sentenced to fifteen years. All of which Barry served, having been denied parole many times. Donna and Earl faithfully visited him in prison - whichever ones they moved him to all over France - every two weeks for TEN years.   They went to his appeal hearings, helped find him attorneys. Many of us who received Earl and Donna's newsletter on Barry over the years came to know him, the French prison system and Earl and Donna well.  Earl, who I last saw in May, was hobbled by Emphysema and his sadness at not being able to take his dog out for a walk, something he loved doing and saying hello to his friends in the quartier where he'd lived for forty years. I spent many wonderful lunches and coffees, archive and prison visits with both  of them.   Earl, of any expat I know, imbued the true experience of assimilated American in France. He tolerated the French and the Americans the way the French tolerate the Americans. I loved this man and his humanity and how he helped change his bit of the world and the lives he enriched.

Miss you Earl

Cara - Tuesday