Any guy my age ( 64 and change) had his sexual wake-up call at age 10, or 11 when Mary Tyler Moore bunked in with Dick Van Dyke in New Rochelle, New York.
As Laurie Petrie, who danced around the furniture in the living room like a ballerina wearing tight knit capris and intelligently tuck sweaters, Mary Tyler Moore was much more than someone's Mom.
In fact, her kid on the show was someone, every gent in my circle of pals and other habitues of alleys leading to 79th St, thought Richie Petrie needed "a poke in the chops," to quote the sage and older Maury Lanigan. Richie had Victim written all over him.
No way, we knew, he was the legit off-spring of Laura Petrie and, besides, Dick Van Dyke wore PJs and sacked out in a twin bed. Something seriously wrong with that guy.
Mary Tyler Moore was evidently not off-limits.
Ergo, toxic male-hood rose like the fabled flaming Phoenix in legions of lads my age.
Fathers Fitzgerald, Wormser, Cusack, Gerrity and Ruby heard imaginary sins against the '6th Amendment' in the confessional boxes of Little Flower Church from the Kennedy Presidency long into arrival of Jimmy Carter with the re-runs, from every toxic masculine soprano between 6th and 8th grades, thanks toi Mary Tyler Moore.
She was the total package; smart, fun, combative and sexy.
What more could a lad want.
Christ welcome home a gorgeous lady.
