On 3/11/08 11:12 AM, Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote: > In the late 40s 50s you wore Big heads scarves ???? that > bundled your hair ???? Amazing.
There must have been another shift in meaning. "Babushka" was what people called head scarves after they went out of style -- implying that it was what an immigrant grandmother would wear. Perhaps "babushka" was re-purposed when big hair was in style, but I don't recall any scarves associated with big hair. (Of course, I ignored the fad entirely, so probably wouldn't notice.) (My hair is bigger now than it was then: during the big hair fad, I stuck with pigtails and french knots, but nowadays I put my hair up in a Gibson when I'm dressed up. Still wear a pigtail for everyday.) ----------------- A head scarf was a square of fabric -- soft cotton or very thin, sleazy silk -- that you folded in half along a diagonal, laid over your head with the fold in front, and tied under the chin. It was strictly for keeping warm. As a small child, I had a red lambswool scarf which must have shrunk in the wash, because the corners barely meet under my chin now. I used to line a larger scarf with it in cold weather -- and treasure it still because I was wearing it the day I fell off the road and broke my collarbone; the guys who called the ambulance for me said they would never have seen me among the weeds if I hadn't been waving "that red thing". Of course, if I'd known it was only a broken collarbone, I could have got up and walked home. (I wonder whether ambulances still carry those two-part "orthopedic stretchers" that you assemble under the victim so that you can pick him up without bending him.) -- Joy Beeson http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. where the snow and ice are melting again.
