As a young boy growing up in a small town in Wisconsin, there were unlimited pleasures of having an entire forest at my fingertips in which to play around in. Great pine forests, blackberry bushes, fields and the Wisconsin River practically in my backyard.
But at one point, I'd have to eat and so I'd spend time with my sister when she was home from school (I was much younger than her), my mom and our housekeeper, Mrs. K. All of them loved soap operas, and because I loved them too, I ended up watching quite abit of them growing up.
My sister was a DARK SHADOWS, GENERAL HOSPITAL and RYAN'S HOPE fan, my mom and her mom and Mrs. K loved ALL MY CHILDREN. I would heat up a bowl of Campbell's soup, have lunch, watch the soaps and, when they were done, I'd spend lots of time making movie theatres out of lego pieces.
We really weren't rich or anything, but my mom had a nervous condition (which would later be diagnosed as agoraphobia) and liked to have another adult around especially with two boys (my brother and myself) who were constantly battling. Actually when he was out of the house, it was a pretty peaceful place.
Mrs. K made delicious dinners for the family - meatloafs, pot roasts, chicken, fresh veggies, homemade dumplings and the best mashed potatoes I've ever had. She wouldn't actually sit down and watch the soaps, she would be behind me doing the ironing and we would occasionally make comments about a story or a character. I'd load my soup with crackers and drink all the juice first. Then I'd pile all the contents on to a cracker and eat the whole thing in one gulp.
My gramma, my mom's mom, was an ALL MY CHILDREN fan but soured on the show when the character of Charlie Brent sassed his parents one too many times. I kinda loved her for that. She wouldn't take that from actual grandchildren and she wouldn't watch a show where a fictional kid sassed his fictional parents. When people say they're going to boycott a show because they don't like the direction the show has taken, I believe them because my gramma did it.
The women in my life growing up were strong and had great imaginations. I never thought of the soap opera genre as a woman's domain. My father worked for himself and wasn't around during the day so there'd be no way he could watch these shows, and my brother was a nut job so that he wasn't interested in the shows didn't seem odd to me. And still, later, when I'd talk about soaps to my friends, they'd look at me like I was from Mars because apparently boys didn't watch soaps. Well, this boy did a lot of thing that, to rural Wisconsinites, boys weren't supposed to do (like like other boys!)
DARK SHADOWS is long long gone and RYAN'S HOPE went off the air decades ago. Mrs. K passed away in 1991 and my dear gramma in 2004. In September, I bid goodbye to ALL MY CHILDREN. And today, I bid goodbye to ONE LIFE TO LIVE.
And while GENERAL HOSPITAL is still on the air and will feature some ONE LIFE TO LIVE alums, it's not a show I've watched for a decade.
So today is really the end of an era, an era that's lasted as long as I have been alive.. and it's kind of trippy.
I imagine Mrs. K ironing over one shoulder and my gramma tsk tsking Jack Manning's sass over the other.
And today I will sip a can of Chicken Noodle, just for old times sake.
