Bachelors, Spinsters; Sexual Orientation

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Growing up near a very small farming community there were several words I had never heard of until I had left home.  Two of those words were homosexual and lesbian.  I knew a few farmers who never married–bachelors, we called them.  Likewise, I knew a similar number of single women of marriageable age.  They were referred to as old maids or, more politely, spinsters.

I knew all of these people from the time I was capable of recognizing individuals by face and name until age 19 when I departed for the U.S. Navy and I never once heard anyone suggest they were “different” because they had chosen not to subject themselves to wedded bliss.  So far as I know they were not different but if they had been it was  not a subject that was discussed in that place at that time.  It was certainly not the time when a person of alternate sexual persuasion would openly admit to such.

The little town did have its resident “Chester the molester,” however.  He was the owner of the card parlor–virtually harmless as he had no car nor a license to drive one.  He was tolerated by the menfolk who did not wish the only entertainment establishment in town to shut down.  His only target was  young boys and my friends and I never entered the place unless it was already occupied by adult customers.  I don’t know about the town boys.  The man reportedly offered cigarettes and most of the townies smoked and  none had jobs except for the paper boy and he didn’t play cards.

What I have described is an early version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but it’s not the point of this essay.  The things I didn’t know as I was growing up were fairly common knowledge in the bigger towns and large cities.  It’s the innocence of the mid-20th century small rural community that has passed into history and its loss is no one’s gain.