Father Horne looked like Johnny Carson, first clue for dad the molestation did affect me after all

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(Putting together Chapter 2, this sidebar produced itself)

For a time in 1961 every day after school I ran in the house panting straight to the TV, not wanting to miss a second of Johnny Carson. I had such a crush at age twelve on the comedian, it was more than a crush, it was an obsession.  One afternoon my dad was home from work for some reason when I ran in the door, and he stared in awe as I slammed past him to get to the TV set and gaze. "Every day after school she does this?" he asked, and my mom nodded.  She was as shocked seeing it then again as my dad was seeing it for the first time. They stared at me, and I was aroused.  

The other day I still wondered why I had such an extreme crush on Johnny Carson when I was so young, so I took a moment to track down pictures from the time he was doing Who Do You Trust 1956-63, and I GOt ChILLs when I saw him and compared pictures of the two men. 

My perp priest Father Thomas Barry Horne and Johnny Carson looked almost exactly alike. Now decades later I realized, that resemblance must have been one of my dad's first clues that the priest molesting his two little girls in the early 1950s might have an effect on us as we got older after all.  See for yourself how much Carson looked like Horne-y in the pics below. 

Carson

Horne

I was in 7th grade (beginning puberty) when Carson's afternoon quiz show Who Do You Trust came on the air, AND i'D GO NUTS getting home from school on time to watch it. My crush on Johnny Carson came from somewhere deeper than your typical schoolgirl crush, I wanted him and needed him physically and here I had not yet even had "the talk" with my parents.  I always wondered about this period of somewhat of a mania over Johnny Carson as I got older.  Now seeing and comparing these pictures, I totally understand. 

That afternoon my dad got a weird look on his face.  He looked at the TV and he looked at me watching the TV in love so hard it was causing people to comment.  I was having a sexual attraction before I even knew what sex was. 

Here are two more pics of the two men showing they are eerily alike

My Dad Must Have Seen It Then

Carson

Horne-y

My dad must have seen it then, the resemblance between Johnny Carson and Father Horne, the man who'd molested his two daughters less than ten years earlier. 

Back in 1955 the bishop of Chicago likely convinced my dad that his two little girls would forget a molestation, probably saying so while he handed my dad a check.  But now in 1961 I was displaying weird behavior.  My crush on Johnny Carson may have been why my dad was home from work on a weekday afternoon to begin with, having been summoned by my worried mom.  Maybe my mom wondered about the resemblance too. . . ? 

Looking at it now I can see, my dad knew what was causing the weird behavior and did not say a thing, a position he'd find himself in many more times to come, as I went from puberty to adulthood and the animal in me became unleashed. 

And wow I'm shocked now as a sixty five year old lady Googling pictures and comparing and seeing the resemblance.  Wow.  

-ke