@skeeter
So a man in his thirties hanging around malls to meet teenagers is normal. A man in his thirties who hung around teen girls’ recitals—-no problem. Okay, it seems you’ve accepted he did that, and that the accounts are true.
To believe that, and none of the rest, is just picking and choosing because you want to be able to justify supporting Moore.
@CatherineofAragon Today? No, it would not be considered normal
today. Neither would be: not having an e-mail, or not having a cell phone, or a car with no seat belts or air bags, driving on bias ply tires, or going without some version of cable/satellite/streaming television, or not having internet access, or enough knowledge of a computer to write a letter on it and print it out, or a heck of a lot of other things.
But all of that was
science fiction in 1977. Every damned bit of it. The hand calculator had just reached affordability for the average college student, and the programmable calculator was still a wet dream item for the guys who still used their slide rules. Computers were mainframes for Big banks, insurance companies, and Government, and were fed information with punch cards, magnetic tape, or punched paper tape.
But after graduating West Point, two tours in the US Army, and law school, in 1977 there were not many single and suitable thirty somethings in the marketplace, so to speak. The expression "The good ones are all taken" applied, at least by 32. How many single (not divorced) eligible women were there in his age group? How would he meet any of them (remember this is a guy who didn't drink, so 'clubbing' is out, not to mention a 'dry' county).
Well, as a male who was still single in his late twenties, you go where the women are. He went to community events (like football games), he went to the shopping mall, church socials, he spoke with single ladies, he even (EGADS!) asked them out in their place of employment--because that is where he met them. They were free to say "No.", just as they are today--that hasn't changed.
Judging from the ambiguous replies a man could (and still can) get from a woman who has piqued his interest when he asks for a date, asking two or three times before the guy finally figures out she genuinely is not interested is not so unusual.
I have been over the demographics that would compel a man of 30 to look at prospects in their late teens.
Let's step into his age group and back in time....
Many states had drinking laws which permitted beer and wine consumption at 18, and eighteen year-olds could vote. The idea was that if you were old enough to hump a ruck and carry a rifle in a far off rice paddy or jungle, or drive a tank, or fly a helicopter, you could have a beer when you got home. Because of that awareness, though, of life and death having recently been poured into your living room with the evening news, and with the confrontation of the very real prospects not so long ago of your number coming up in the draft lottery, with all that implied for people in that age group, I think we were looking at a more mature group of teenagers. Even after the lottery stopped, seeing older siblings sweat the draft or decide whether to enlist or waiting for them to come home still stuck with their younger kin. It was, for many, a more sober time.
I know the work we did, just in our summer jobs was a 'man's work', not limited by all the protectionist laws of today that restrict who can run a deep fryer. Many of us, too young to be in the service, were instead involved in Volunteer Fire Departments and Rescue Squads, not as 'junior members', but as firefighters and EMS. There were 96 students in my High School graduating class and members of five different fire departments in the class, for instance.
We had worked to stabilize and extricate quite a few accident victims by our 18th birthday, some of whom were friends. Some, through no fault of ours just did not make it despite the new SOP of stabilizing the worst traumas and flying them out by helicopter from the scene to ShockTrauma at Johns Hopkins. Four miles of one highway in our first-due area killed an average of twenty people every six months. Every High School yearbook had its memorial pages for those who died in car accidents or got wrapped up in a piece of farm machinery or who had to be fished out after a boating accident. Life was dangerous and we knew it, and we didn't run around shooting at each other or do hard drugs.
By 1977, all the Mary Janes had sent their Dear Johns out years ago and hooked up with some 4F or feather merchant or college deferment (hippie?) while 'that guy' was off wherever the Army sent him. Some even waited for their guy to come home, and some of them couldn't deal with how service had changed him, often with his inability to find things they thought to be earth shaking as irrelevant or ridiculously superficial. A small percentage of them got married and raised families according to the original plan.
Some of the guys who had gone overseas courtesy of Uncle Sam were back home going to college on the GI Bill, and (gadzooks!) dating young ladies in their teens (17-18-19 year-olds being in college). Not a few were only in their mid twenties, but they hadn't gone to West Point, either. There were grad students in college dating underclassmen as well. Tut-tut!
Robbing the cradle! What's the difference between a Law Student and a Lawyer? A few tests and final grades; a sheepskin and a paycheck.
Those who tried to wait, tried to get back together, and could not make things work found someone else, but usually years before a guy going into law school graduated. After all, Moore had West Point (4 years), two tours in the Army (six more), Law School (three more years) before he was back in the community.
Some had married and were raising their families, and not available--at least to any man who respects the sanctity of marriage. Divorcees (and there were likely a few around) had the basic social stigma of divorce around them (there still was that, then), but also often had 'issues' and deep resentments left over from a failed marriage, regardless of the cause of the failure. Between the Pill, 'free love', no-fault divorce, and the ERA, the environment for a man seeking to start a family got fairly toxic in that time period. A radio overflowing with cheating heart songs and 'love the one you're with' rock and roll didn't help, either.
Why the great insistence he prospect for a mate in the minefield of his age group instead of look into the (legal) young ladies in his community? This was a different America, not today.
