Seems that I had no sooner finished writing last week's column - in which I bemoaned the fact that my two sons seem to be growing up way too fast - when I found myself slapped upside the head with an unpleasant reminder that my own age demographic isn't exactly what it used to be.

I was on the Internet one evening, rummaging around for column ideas, when I came across an article on an entertainment magazine's website listing that publication's pick for "Top 10 TV Hotties." ("Hottie," incidentally, is a phrase which I have never particularly cared for and which I honestly do not believe I have ever used - even in quotation marks - before now... which in itself is probably some kind of sign that I ain't no spring chicken.)

Of the 10 names listed, I think I had heard of maybe one or two - and if these 10 are truly considered to be the most attractive actresses of our time, then the writer of the piece should have found a better group of photos to accompany his article because, quite frankly, the pictures that did appear did absolutely nothing for me. In fact, a couple of the pictures looked so much like really bad yearbook photos that I'd be looking to hire a new publicist if I were one of those women.

As might be expected, a number of readers had shared comments about the list, ranging from "How could you have possibly rated this actress higher than that actress" to "How come So-and-So didn't make the list at all?" to "What the @#%! were you thinking including HER?" The latter of which pretty much summed up my feelings about the entire exercise.

Well, my first mistake was clicking onto the website's "comments" section myself and writing that I just didn't think much of any of the writer's selections.

Again not unexpectedly, that comment resulted in a number of responses questioning my intelligence and, in one extremely ugly example, my sexual orientation. After making it clear that this final comment was not worth even acknowledging, let alone responding to, I thoroughly intended to drop the matter at that point and move on to other cyber-locales in search of column fodder.

But then one of the other responses aimed in my direction drew my attention. The writer asked, in terms far more politely than most of those who responded, what television actresses I did happen to find attractive.

So I put fingers to keyboard and pounded out a quick response. And that, as it happens, was my second mistake.

Because, you see, I watch so little of contemporary television - preferring rerunning old favorites in my home video library to most of the drek that passes for small screen entertainment these days - that I'm just not all that familiar with most contemporary performers or the programs they appear on. Give me a name of an actor or actress and chances are I won't have a clue who you're talking about; give the the name of the show they're on and more likely as not all you will get is a shrug and "Never seen it" in reply.

So my list was made up of names of actresses whose work dates back in most cases at least four decades. You know, the stuff I watched when I was growing up. Actresses who - even though in some cases I probably didn't really realize it at the time - I had youthful crushes on as a TV-watching boy and teenager in the late 1960s and throughout the '70s. (I guess there's no harm in admitting that now, so many years after the fact; after all, I've learned to live with the fact that my wife had a bit of a thing for Shaun Cassidy when she was in a kid.)

So - like a dummy, I suppose - I went ahead and shared a brief list of those TV actresses who at one point or another in my youth I considered to be (as much as I hate the term) "hotties."

Actresses like Barbara Eden...

Yvonne Craig...

Barbara Feldon...

Donna Douglas...

Melody Patterson...

Dawn Wells...

Tina Louise...

Julie Newmar...

Elizabeth Montgomery...

Marlo Thomas...

Diana Rigg...

Stephanie Powers...

Anne Francis...

Linda Cristol...

Peggy Lipton...

Joanna Cameron...

Pam Dawber (the closest thing to a "contemporary" star on the whole bloomin' list, now that I think of it)...

And Mary Tyler Moore - especially in her "Dick Van Dyke Show" days.

"Now THOSE were attractive TV actresses," I concluded before hitting the send button. And - wouldn't you know it? - it didn't take but a few seconds for some chucklehead to fire off a mean-spirited response: "Gee, can't you think of anybody a little less prehistoric, Grandpa?"

Ouch.

Now THAT hurt.

But that's okay. I STILL prefer the ladies on my list to those on the magazine's; even today none of their choices could begin to hold a candle to Barbara Eden or Mary Tyler Moore in either the looks or talent department.

Shoot, man, when it comes to their list I'd take Wilma Flintstone over a couple of them.

I mean, come on: Julia Louis-Dreyfuss...?

I don't think so.

(Copyright 2010, by John A. Small)