As A Baby Boomer Adolescent Did You Sense That Jane Hathaway, Zelda, Alice Nelson, and Josephine The Plumber Were Dykes?

Oh! Mr. Drysdale! Jethro wants to be a rock star!

Not exactly. Much like Dr. Smith, Uncle Arthur and Claymore Gregg, I knew they were “off” but I had no idea what it meant in terms of sexuality.

Jane Hathaway, definitely. But I thought Alice and Sam were in love.

I bought the whole unrequited love thing of Zelda and Miss Jane hook, line, and sinker. Never a BB fan, so I’ll give Sam and Alice the benefit of the doubt.

My sisters had friends like that back then. Bookworms, nerds, straight-A students, no fashion sense. I remember one named Donna with horn-rimmed glasses and lank hair, always wore jeans and walked like a guy with her hands in her back pockets. She eventually married a man but never had kids (maybe because she was epileptic).

I never considered it--just thought they were a little on the masculine side. Lots of straight women have a touch of masculine. Like Jo from Facts of Life.

Alan Sues on Laugh In, yeah at 7 years old I knew. My dad would laugh at him and call him nuttier than a fruitcake.

No, just uniquely bizarre, relatable and oddly funny characters. Sort of like, as kids and growing up in the consciousness of that era, you didn’t think about it or of them in that way.

I had no gaydar for women, back then.

I thought Zelda was a tomboy.

I thought Hobo Kelly was a dyke.

also, Ralph from Green Acres.

[quote] She eventually married a man but never had kids (maybe because she was epileptic).

Huh? Is that just a complete non sequitur or did her uterus somehow fall out during a seizure?

My Aunt Bea always said they were from Lisbon and so was Endora.

She said she could just feel it.

I figured Ginger and Mary Ann fingered each other before bedtime in their hut.

Hazel the maid, definite dyke

I’m Gen X and definitely knew Peppermint Patty, Velma from Scooby Doo and Jo from Facts of Life were different than the other ladies

As a Gen Xer I remember the dark haired one on “On Our Own” pinging something, even after she became young Dorothy on Golden Girls

[quote] Lots of straight women have a touch of masculine.

Like half the women in Wisconsin.

I think Judith Anderson dusted Barbra Stanwyck's pussy. Or was it Agnes Morehead?

In my day, the Josephine The Plumber types were denizen's of white suburbia. Married with children to asexual men and described as "sporty," a euphemism for dyke, they bussed children to school, served as Girl Scout leaders, school board presidents, organizer's of church outings and occasionally toilet fixers. And yes, they usually had a disposition just like Jane Withers

A wonderful Irene Ryan story!

My mother used to be the P.A. for Nancy Kulp back in the day when good ol Nance had the dough for a P.A. (post Parent Trap). Anyway, Nance had just gone through a very rigorous audition process in order to get the role of Ms. Jane Hathaway, on what would become the landmark televison series "The Beverly H illbilly's". She was assigned a dressing room with an actress she had never heard of named one Ms. Irene Ryan. Well, Nance and Irene got along famously from the get go, though, apparantly, Nance was apprehensive about letting Irene know about her diggin the ladies, seeing as how Irene was 86 at the time, Nance suspected she might not take to kindly to having a lady co-star who liked to shave other gals Hams.

Well, how funny was it when after a long day of shooting, Irene packed up the castor oil and bag of hair that she always had with her and left the lot for the day. Nance thought that she had free reign of the trailer for the rest of the evening and invited a delightful Nubian extra named Puma into her trailer for some dinner and some hot finger fucking !!! Well no sooner had our girl Nance gotten up to her shoulder in Puma's girl than Irene walked in, Nance told my mom that she was caught "black handed" by dear granny herself. Well, Nance was ashamed and had it not been for her damned collatta ring gett ing caught on some of Puma's internal lady skin she would have had her arm out of her in an instant. Irene just looked at the tw o of them in their "compromising position" and chuckled. You could have knocked Nance over with a feather. Apparantly, she was bright red so Irene soothed her fears and told her not to worry, she was totally cool with the fact that Nance liked to bump waffles and then proceeded to lift up her skirt and show her the tiniest pair of balls that Nance had ever seen (granted, Nance probably didn't see too many balls in her day, but still). Irene then explained that while she was all lady, she happened to have be en born with a pair of vestigal testicals right underneath her clitoris.

Ever since then Irene and Nance remained busom pals til Irene's death in 1974 and Nance never revealed her secret, except to a few close personal friends. Now that is friendship!! !

Here's Josephine The Plumber on her period!

Psst - Jane Withers was married twice & had five children.

Comet Tally Vous?

Josephine in action

Head Nurse Lucille March on GH had me wondering.

Gerladine Whitney on the Edge of Night, too.

And Nancy Hughes, beside being Mother of the Year on ATWT seemed dykey.

Not at all. But I didn't know lesbians existed. In the early 70s, I had a lesbian couple living on my block and just thought it was cool that two best friends lived together. They were from Sweden. The neighborhood was very welcoming and accepting and they played with all the kids on the street and babysat some. No one cared.

I did think though that Peppermint Patty from Charlie Brown was a boy. I think I was an adult when I realized she was a girl and she and Marcy were a couple.

Wasn't Danny Thomas one?

When I was young my brain just said "butch" but I don't remember if I actually knew what that meant, or if I figured it out later.

The lesbians we considered were like the ones in foreign films

What about Schultzie....or does Alice Nelson cover her?

I thought the actress playing Zelda - and before that the younger daughter in some Stu Erwin comedy - was a boy wearing a dress.

Starting at 4:25.

No R28..it was Baba Ghanoush