September 26, 1964 – September 4, 1967    That was the time span when Gilligan’s Island first aired  in monchromatic Black and White Film all the way to when it finally ended  98 episodes later in full on color for the last two years of its run on television…

Now I wasn’t around back then when the final episodes aired but I might  have been percolating down the line in a few years later between the eyes of my mother and father….(enough with thaat thank  you…)

I only saw this program in reruns much like a lot of shows around the time as I was growing up as a youngin’.

What got me about this show…and believe me I noticed, was it’s overt sexualism. I don’t think there was  an episode where there was not flirting going on.

I only bring this up is because often in the past  I had been accused by my wife of flirting too much with the opposite sex….at first I denied it saying you must be crazy…I’m not a flirt…I’m just friendly…and a  sensitive guy.  (which I am btw…and sincere)

Then as I got older I came to be more self aware of  how I act with the opposite sex. And she was right,  I am very flirtatious…but where did this fliratiousness come from?  How did it originate…was it something innate in my DNA  makeup…was I born this way?

I analyzed my childhood growing up, thinking back to my very first kiss… to you know….you knoooow…. the deed we all (well almost all) as teenagers eventually get to experience… its sex …okay  I said it sex…you happy? Anyways moving on…

I think I have, we shall say, always had an appreciation for the opposite sex from the time my brain kicked on and I started thinking for myself  (ya know the stage where you can feed and go to the bathroom without any assistance…some guys my age now still need assistance there)

I found myself rememembering back to when I was about three years old in daycare liking that little girl with the big brown eyes and the short bob haircut who had a pretty smile.  I remember smiling whenever she smiled…I recognized her prettiness when I was three! I just had to be around her…snack time, doing a puzzle, arts & craft…, just in case she looked my way…I was there to smile back.

Then came the neighbor girls when I was about six or seven, they would play these silly games of you can’t catch me….well I was a fast runner and I usually did…one time or two I was rewarded with a  kiss behind the garage.

The thing is, I wasn’t a flirt just yet. I never made any overtures of charming platitudes thrown their way to illicit a response or gave them one of my cookies from my lunch. It wasn’t until probably in fifth or sixth grade that I felt that there was something about these things called girls…hmmm they were so different than guys who were friends…they had these big eyes, glorious smiles, and now they started to smell good…and something was growing on them…what were those bumps all about in the front on her chest…(yes my mom had them but you do not go there as a kid)

What was this wonderous creature …called girl?

Well Gilligan’s Island pointed me in a certain direction of how to attain such beauties. As I grew older watching this show with all it’s sexual inneuedo  and inferences to things best not thought on as a little kid I grew to hate Gilligan himself in certain ways…

Here were these two obviously beautiful women who constantly put him in these compromising positions, fueling his inner fires and he fought against it or was completely blind to it.

It frustrated the hell out of me!

Here you are Gilligan, you Lucky Bastard,  on this deserted island where you are the youngest of four men trapped for god knows how long and you never, if you will excuse my language, tapped that ass?  I thought at the tender age of probably twelve that it was his male imperative to do so..and he failed.

From then after that realization,  my psyche I’m thinking, promised itself not to be such a dumb ass.

So I’m a flirt and it’s all Gilligans fault…:)